jellyish…

you know, after using nutrient agar for culturing cells and bacteria, and using agar for gel electrophoresis, i can never pronounce the malay work for jelly (agar) properly…!

anyway…. here’s the info on jellyfish, that ive been so eager to post abt… need to release for a while, so im doing this before im shredded into pieces at the end of today…

Jellyfish: with own literature research plus Animal Planet data…

 First, jellyfish are not fish, as what ive been thinking since secondary sch days. sad to see a bio teacher not realise that jellyfish arent fish. so what are they?

they belong to the coral family. you see, when mating season for jellyfish begin, the female jellyfish releases her eggs. and they go floating around. the male jellyfish does the same. somehow, when 1 sperm and 1 egg meet, the egg gets fertilised, and then this new zygote floats around, until it lands on a coral. there, they attach themselves to the surface, and they divide, forming polyps around them. as cell division continues, each polyp start to stack up one of top of each other  (like dinner plates).. then, as each layer ‘ripens’, they detach from the stack. and then float off and start doing the jellyfish swim…

cool right!!

then there are different types of jellyfish… the scary ones are box jellyfish.

the most potent box jellyfish would be the Irukandji…

 

size: its bell is smaller than the nail on our thumb.

the stinging cells on its tentacles and feeding arms are potent enough to kill. a person stung by an Irukandji with just 1 stinging cell would mostly likely be in pain for 2-4 weeks.. and i mean, entire body pain… pain just abt everywhere….

did you know that many jellyfish have eyes too!

they have eyes all around the inside of the bell… which means, they can see everywhere all the time. most of the time, when they see a prey being too big to swallow, they wont waste their potent sting. unless of course the creature is a threat… but somehow, the turtles that eat irkandji dont seem to be affected by the sting.

and jellyfish sleep! these cute creatures lie on the bottom of whereever they are and sleep…! imagine the waves lullabying them back and forth!

awww….. its been a fruitful Animal Planet adventure! ohhh… jellyfish.. i like!

but today, it not Animal Planet Day. today is Open Water Day!