New for 2013 : Jellyfish Discovery!
Unlike most other marine creatures, and despite their stunning beauty and great variety, jellyfish are rarely given the attention they deserve. Now you can marvel at their infinite colors, graceful motion and ghost-like forms in a spellbinding spectacle that reveals their mysterious lives and world in a totally new light.
General information :
600 million years ago, jellyfish already inhabited the oceans. They spend their entire life in open water. Composed of 97% water, they have neither skeleton nor shell protection. Their movements are slow. Driven by ocean currents, they belong to plankton.
Jellyfish belong to the group of Cnidarians, which are animals whose mouth is surrounded by itchy tentacles, such as corals and sea anemones. They mainly feed on plankton and even little fish.
Even protected by its stinging cells, jellyfish still have predators: the leatherback turtle and the sunfish hardly feed on them. Bluefin tuna likes them also a lot. Some species can eat their small congeners. Jellyfish are consumed in China and Japan by humans.
Jellyfish and the marine environment
Turtles are jellyfish predators. They often confuse plastic bags with these translucent animals. It is very common they die intoxicated so. To protect sea turtles, never let rubbish in nature and if you find a plastic bag please throw it in the trash!
There are sometimes anarchic developments of some species od jellyfish. It can be explained by three combined factors causing an ecological imbalance: pollution, global warming and loss of predators such as tuna, dolphins or turtles.
Moon Jellyfish (Aurelia aurita)
That small and gracious jellyfish lives next to our coasts. It is not a dangerous species to humans. It can be 40 cm long !
Blue Jellyfish (Catostylus mosaicus)
Smaller that the Moon Jellyfish, the Blue Jellyfish lives in worm waters in the Indo-West Pacific ocean. It is considered a delicacy in Asia!
- Some jellyfish diameter can reach three metres; others can have four metres long tentacles !
- There are jellyfish that live more than 3.000 metres deep in the oceans !
- Some small fish can hide among jellies' tentacles and feed on what it can reject.
- Some species of jellyfish are among the most venomous marine animals; their sting can kill a human in minutes.
Fishy facts
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