@jellyfish @Jellyfish131

JellyfishSea Animal

Jellyfish, any planktonic marine member of the class Scyphozoa (phylum Cnidaria), a group of invertebrate animals composed of about 200 described species, or of the class Cubozoa (approximately 20 species).

The term is also frequently applied to certain other cnidarians (such as members of the class Hydrozoa) that have a medusoid (bell- or saucer-shaped) body form, as, for example, the hydromedusae and the siphonophores (including the Portuguese man-of-war).

Unrelated forms such as comb jellies (phylum Ctenophora) and salps (phylum Chordata) are also referred to as jellyfish.

Scyphozoan jellyfish can be divided into two types, those that are free-swimming medusae and those that are sessile (i.e., stem animals that are attached to seaweed and other objects by a stalk). The sessile polyplike forms constitute the order Stauromedusae.

Free-swimming scyphozoan jellyfish occur in all oceans and include the familiar disk-shaped animals that are often found drifting along the shoreline. Most live for only a few weeks, but some are known to survive a year or longer.

The bodies of most range in size from about 2 to 40 cm (1 to 16 inches) in diameter; some species are considerably larger, however, with diameters of up to 2 metres (6.6 feet). Scyphozoan medusae consist of almost 99 percent water as a result of the composition of the jelly that forms the bulk in nearly all species.

Most feed on copepods, fish larvae, and other small animals that they catch in their tentacles, which have stinging cells (nematocysts).

Some, however, simply suspension feed, extracting minute animals and algae (phytoplankton) from the water. Like all cnidarians, their bodies are made up of two cellular layers, the ectoderm and the endoderm, between which lies the gelatinous mesoglea. In jellyfish the transparent mesoglea layer is quite thick.

The life cycle of free-swimming scyphozoan jellyfish typically consists of three stages. A sessile polyp (scyphistoma) stage asexually buds off young medusae from its upper end, with each such ephyra growing into an adult.

The adults are either male or female, but in some species they change their sex as they age. In many species, normal fusion of egg and sperm results in an embryo that is brooded in the gut of the adult until it becomes a ciliated planula larva, but in some this development takes place in the sea.

After the planula larva leaves its parent, it lives for a time in the plankton and eventually attaches to a rock or other solid surface, where it grows into a new scyphistoma.

Such a life cycle characterizes the order Semaeostomeae, which contains some 50 species of mainly coastal-water jellyfish, several of which have very wide geographic ranges.

Included among these are members of the genera Aurelia and Chrysaora and the big red jellyfish, Tiburonia granrojo (subfamily Tiburoniinae), one of only three species of jellyfish that lack tentacles.

Biology Of Jellyfish
Medusozoan jellyfish
Jellyfish are not a clade, as they include most of the Medusozoa, barring some of the Hydrozoa. The medusozoan groups included by authorities are indicated on the following phylogenetic tree by the presence of citations.

Names of included jellyfish, in English where possible, are shown in boldface; the presence of a named and cited example indicates that at least that species within its group has been called a jellyfish.

Taxonomy
The subphylum Medusozoa includes all cnidarians with a medusa stage in their life cycle. The basic cycle is egg, planula larva, polyp, medusa, with the medusa being the sexual stage.

The polyp stage is sometimes secondarily lost. The subphylum include the major taxa, Scyphozoa (large jellyfish), Cubozoa (box jellyfish) and Hydrozoa (small jellyfish), and excludes Anthozoa (corals and sea anemones).

This suggests that the medusa form evolved after the polyps. Medusozoans have tetramerous symmetry, with parts in fours or multiples of four.

Scyphozoa are sometimes called true jellyfish, though they are no more truly jellyfish than the others listed here. They have tetra-radial symmetry. Most have tentacles around the outer margin of the bowl-shaped bell, and long, oral arms around the mouth in the center of the subumbrella.

Cubozoa (box jellyfish) have a (rounded) box-shaped bell, and their velarium assists them to swim more quickly. Box jellyfish may be related more closely to scyphozoan jellyfish than either are to the Hydrozoa.

Anatomy
The main feature of a true jellyfish is the umbrella-shaped bell. This is a hollow structure consisting of a mass of transparent jelly-like matter known as mesoglea, which forms the hydrostatic skeleton of the animal.

95% or more of the mesogloea (the tissue that functions as a hydro-static skeleton) consists of water, but it also contains collagen and other fibrous proteins, as well as wandering amoebocytes which can engulf debris and bacteria.