What are Jellyfish?
Jellyfish
along
with sea-anemones and corals belong to the animal group
called Scyphozoa and
are also known as 'nettle animals'. A jellyfish is a large umbrella like bag
with tentacles hanging below it. The tentacles have
tiny stinging cells which are used to capture, paralyze and kill the
prey while
the bag keeps the animal floating.
This floating
stage is the adult stage of jellyfish and is known as the medusa
stage. The
eggs of
the adult
stage develop into polyps which attach themselves to a rock in water and feed
and grow into
the medusa. Jellyfish range
in size from smaller
than the
tip of our finger to giants
measuring two
metres across. The largest
jellyfish, Cyanea Capillata can
grow to
2.3 m
across and has tentacles hanging
down
to over 4 m.
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