Cnidaria, features and articles | Educational Science

May 2, 2011

What the Heck Is This?

Not goofing around today — this one is tough. I'll be surprised if anyone gets it without cheating. So make your guess before reading on… It's a giant jellyfish unlike most you might ever have seen. Instead of long tentacles, this creature has fleshy arms that capture food. See the...

Aug 15, 2005

Jellyfish Invade the Globe, Thanks to Humans

There are exotic Frankenfish in the Potomac, unbearably noisy foreign frogs in Hawaii, and the destructive spiny water fleas that have snuck into northern lakes. Now you can add alien moon jellyfish to the growing list of invasive species that threaten ecosystems around the planet. Scientists announced the discovery of...

Jul 10, 2006

Fewer Fish Leads to Jellyfish Explosion

Nature abhors a vacuum. Wipe out one creature, and another will move in. Mammals leveraged this principle when the reign of dinosaurs ended. Now in a smaller way, jellyfish are taking over. In a region off the west coast of Africa in the Atlantic Ocean, heavy fishing in recent decades...

Apr 1, 2007

Jellyfish Have Human-Like Eyes

A set of special eyes, similar to our own, keeps venomous box jellyfish from bumping into obstacles as they swim across the ocean floor, a new study finds. Unlike normal jellyfish, which drift in the ocean current, box jellyfish are active swimmers that can rapidly make 180-degree turns and deftly...

Dec 19, 2008

The Truth Behind Global Jellyfish Swarms

This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation. Large swarms of jellyfish and other gelatinous animals — sometimes covering hundreds of square miles of ocean — have recently been reported in many of the world's prime vacation and fishing destinations. In this...

Jul 29, 2009

Jellyfish Have Big Mixing Effect on the Oceans

Pulsating jellyfish and their swim pals stir up the oceans with as much vigor as tides and winds, scientists have found. Their study also found that the shape of the aquatic blobs affects their mixing abilities. Until now, oceanographers had dismissed the idea that such tiny ocean creatures could play...

Nov 19, 2009

Light Shed on Mysteries of Deadly Jellyfish

Box jellyfish are odd creatures. Some species have 24 eyes. They mate in mass spawning, during which males and females never touch while they release sperm and eggs into the ocean and let nature take its course. Most interest to humans is the fact that box jellyfish can be deadly....

Apr 27, 2010

How Deadly Is the Box Jellyfish?

By all accounts, 10-year-old Australian girl Rachael Shardlow should be dead. One of the world’s most poisonous creatures, a box jellyfish, stung Shardlow in Australia in December, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported. After being pulled from the water with tentacles still wrapped around her legs, she amazingly lived through the...

Jul 22, 2010

How One Jellyfish Stung 100 People

How can one jellyfish sting up to 100 people? With lots of stinger-equipped tentacles, the largest jellyfish in the world may be up to the job, though scientists aren't sure if this week's mass stinging was the result of one jellyfish or more than one. Reported Wednesday at Wallis Sands...

Oct 18, 2010

Jellyfish Attacks With Stealth

When you think of stealthy marine predators, a creature commonly called the sea walnut probably doesn't come to mind. However, new research shows the gelatinous blob hunts as effectively as a small, but much more sophisticated fish. Stealth is the secret. Mnemiopsis leidyi, as it's formally called, is a ctenophore,...

Oct 19, 2010

Jellyfish Swarms: Menacing or Misunderstood?

They sting, even kill, swimmers. They block the cooling systems of power plants. They clog fishing nets and kill penned salmon. In recent years, reports of havoc caused by swarms of jellyfish have inspired speculation that these simple, otherworldly creatures are capitalizing on changes we have brought to ocean ecosystems....

Feb 9, 2011

Album: Jellyfish Rule!

Jellyfish Rule! (Image credit: NOAA/Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute)This giant red-hued jellyfish called Tiburonia granrojo was described by American and Japanese researchers in 2003. It grows up to 3.3 feet (1 meter) in diameter and lives at depths of 2,000 to 4,800 feet (650 to 1500 meters) in the ocean....

Apr 28, 2011

Image Gallery: Jellyfish Rule!

Jellyfish Swarms (Image credit: K.Katija/J.Dabiri.)Jellyfish are simple, successful and, occasionally, deadly creatures. The Australian box jellyfish has enough toxin in each of its tentacles to kill 60 people. Some jellyfish create spectacular blooms when fields of polyps, their stationary life stage, simultaneously bud off into free-floating medusae. These blooms are...

Apr 28, 2011

Brainless Jellyfish Navigates with Specialized Eyes

The skyward gaze of one set of eyes belonging to box jellyfish provides evidence that these creatures -- which lack a conventional brain -- are capable of sophisticated behavior. New research has shown that one species of jellyfish uses one set of eyes to navigate and keep itself close to...

Jul 12, 2011

Jellyfish Swim for Their Supper

Jellyfish actively swim high and low to catch food, rather than drift passively, according to a study of large barrel jellyfish off the Welsh coast. This behavior may explain some of gelatinous blobs' success. It is just another feature of jellyfish that is going to help them outcompete fish and...