Jellyfish are one of the most interesting creatures living on Earth. Their body is made up of waterlogged mesoglea, a connective tissue that looks like jelly.
The shape of these inhabitants of the water element resembles an umbrella or a bell, a mushroom or a star, as these creatures have thin tentacles. Therefore, they got their name from the Greek word with the root "melas", which in translation sounds like "black stars" or "asters".
The largest jellyfish is Cyanea capilata, also called giant cyanide, arctic cyanide, hairy cyanide or lion's mane. She belongs to the scyphomedusa.
In 1865, a huge jellyfish was washed ashore in Massachusetts Bay after a storm. The diameter of her umbrella was 2.29 m, while the length of the tentacles was almost 37 meters! Zoologists believe that the largest jellyfish with an umbrella diameter of two and a half meters and forty-meter tentacles can be found among the Arctic cyanides.
Giant cyanide lives in the northern part of the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, as well as in the seas of the Arctic. But the largest jellyfish rarely comes close to the shore, so few people manage to meet it. People, looking at photos of the lucky ones, do not believe in their plausibility, considering them photoshopped. However, such hulks do occur in nature.
The largest jellyfish moves in a jet way, like its relatives. When the muscles contract, water is sharply pushed out of the cavity of the umbrella - this allows the jelly-like creature to move in the water quite quickly.
The body color of the jellyfish changes depending on its size. Large individuals are red, brown, brown and even dark purple. Along the edge of the umbrella are tentacles (they are collected in eight bundles) and sensory organs. In the middle of the lower (concave) side is the mouth, surrounded by thin fringed oral lobes.
The largest jellyfish in the world feeds on small marine life: plankton, crustaceans, molluscs, fish eggs and small fish. She herself can also serve as dinner for some large fish. Small individuals are especially often eaten by marine predators.
The jellyfish paralyzes its victims with the poison located in the stinging cells on the tentacles. Inside the stinging cells, hollow long filaments are twisted into spirals. Outside, a small hair sticks out, which, when touched, works like a trigger, the thread is thrown out of the capsule and digs into the victim. And already on the thread comes the poison. The paralyzed and immobilized victim is slowly directed by the jellyfish into its mouth with the help of first tentacles, and then oral lobes.
It should be noted thatjellyfish do not attack people themselves - as an object of food, a person does not interest her. However, a jellyfish is capable of “burning” a particularly careless curious with its poison. These chemical burns, while not fatal, are quite painful, especially if the jellyfish is large.
The world's largest jellyfish breeds this way. Males release spermatozoa into the water, from where they enter the body of the female and fertilize the eggs. The eggs then develop into planula larvae. After leaving the body of the jellyfish and swimming for several days, the larva attaches to the substrate and transforms into a polyp.
As a polyp, this species of marine life reproduces by budding, forming daughter polyps. In the spring, the polyp turns into a larva - ether, and the ether gradually turns into a jellyfish.
