Thursday, March 14, 2013

Comb Jellies (Not actually jellyfish)





Basically Rainbow Space Ships






 Really beautiful looking jellyfish like animals that move around with little tiny hairs. Not only are they transparent but rainbow bands cover their bodies. They really remind me of a spaceship or submarine  More info below. 

First three videos show several species of jellies 


This is a Sea Gooseberry Comb Jelly

Comb Jellies

These guys aren't jellyfish but they are transparent, jelly-like invertebrates with bright bands around their body that reflect the sun’s rays in a rainbow fashion.  These bands come from tiny hairs called combs which allow the jelly to swim and create those rainbow colors.  They live near the surface of both shallow and deep waters. They are “voracious” feeders (meaning they eat several times more than their body weight) and they eat planktonic organisms (like zooplankton), fish larvae, oyster eggs, and other comb jellies. They eat and breathe by pumping water through their body.  Their main predators are sea turtles, other jelly-eating animals, such as tuna, sunfish butterfish, and spiny dogfish.  Their maximum size is about 5 inches. Young comb jellies can reproduce 13 days after hatching. 










Sea Gooseberry 

Sea gooseberries are also comb jellies with their cilia (tiny hairs) allowing the jelly to swim.  They aren't jellyfish but like jellyfish they have no brain and have a large jelly center. They have a nervous system but it is very decentralized like a jellyfish. They are also voracious predators and eat other jellyfish. Unlike jellyfish they don’t use venom cells to kill their prey (they can however use the venom cells if they kill a venomous jellyfish for defense  instead they use colloblasts cells that act as a glue to trap their prey. They catch their prey and then real their tentacles in to their pouches inside their body. 












http://www.arkive.org/sea-gooseberry/pleurobrachia-pileus/





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