Jellyfish of the very long week!
Guess whats back! Jellyfish of the week! This is a tiburonia granrojo (how cool is that to say?!) jelly who has only been discovered in 2003. Granrojo means “big red” in spanish but the guy who discovered it wanted to initially call it “big ugly”. A bit mean! This big boy lives quite deep, over 600 metres down, and can grow to 3 metres in diameter. Instead of tentacles it has thick arms made out of the flesh which makes up its umbrella.
Scientists have only found 23 of these jellyfish so they could possibly be extinct. Not much else is known by these crazy looking guys and they are not poisonous.
Jellyfish of the Week
Well in my defence I never specified what weeks I would be doing the Jellyfish. I am going to introduce you to the Crown Jellyfish today, but first ill share some fascinating facts. Jellyfish are immortal (until they beach themselves, dry out in the sun and kids poke them with sticks). This is because they move through life going from polyp stage, a plant like bulb at the bottom of the ocean floor, to full adulthood, which is what we see. The polyps are found deep on the ocean floor where they can not be eaten. Here is a picture of a polyp to give you an understanding of what I am talking about:
Aren’t they beautiful? There was not many photos around, but I guess they would be pretty hard to find! Here is a diagram of a Jellyfish life cycle, this helped me understand how it all works:
See, how cool! They often stay in the form of polyps for years, growing and developing into fully grown jellyfish. Polyp and Medua are the longest phases, lasting years, while the rest of the phases only last days/weeks. Todays Jellyfish is called the Crown Jellyfish because of the presence of a deep groove running around the umbrella, giving them their crown shape. Here, ill show you:
These species live in the deep ocean and often other small creatures, including fish, live in the Jellys tentacles. They figure out how not to get stung, and nestle up there, laying eggs and feeding off of plankton that washes in.
They can also have long tentacles, as seen above, that will sting but not kill a human, though it is rare that humans will come into skin contact with these as of where they live. On another note, while browsing last night, I found the most amazing picture of a butterfly, or is it moth? Well, its amazing. And I thought I would share it with you!
Jellyfish Of The Week
This week’s jellyfish is the box jellyfish. The box jellyfish contains the most venomous poison in the entire Animal kingdom. Their looks are very distinguished in comparison to most other types of jellyfish as their “umbrella”, the dome shaped body of the jellyfish, is square. Their tentacles are only attached at four points around the umbrella and they can have up to 60 tentacles in total.
They are the fastest type of jellyfish with speeds of up to 4 knots recorded. Another scary fact, among many, is that box jellyfish have actual eyes, with retinas, corneas and lenses. This allows them to distinguish specific points of light as opposed to just light and dark. What makes them hard to spot in the water is they are almost transparent. They have 500 000 cnidocytes which are harpoon shaped needles that inject venom into the victim.
But do not be afraid, Australian beaches are usually netted and contain vinegar for these kind of emergencies. Alcohol should never be poured over any type of jellyfish sting as this releases the venom from the creature into the victims blood stream.
I think they are beautiful, how about you?
Jellyfish and Stains Exhibition
Im terribly sorry for not posting sooner, I never intended to post every day but I also never intended to leave it this long! Yay I figured out how to make images bigger! No one needs to point out that to make them bigger you change the size from medium to large, I see my stupidity now(edit:oh no! my images are cut in half, they are returning to small until i figure out how to fix it). Now I have had requests for a post on Jellyfish, as I am completely obsessed, and I think having a Jellyfish every few posts should be good. I have also had a request for a “Which Jellyfish are you?” Quiz (you know who you are) and ill see what I can do.
Jellyfish are amazing creatures. There are over 2000 types in the Jellyfish species, with new discoveries happening nearly every week! They are the longest species of animal in the world, beating the blue whale at a length of 36 metres. The blue whale, which is the second longest and the largest mass animal, comes in at 30 metres. There has been a Jellyfish with a diameter recorded at 3.5 metres and it is common to find one around 2.5 metres.
So here is your Jellyfish of the day, we are starting with a pretty one, its the “Fried Egg Jellyfish” literally, because they look like a fried egg:
Yesterday, I went to “Stains” exhibition at gallery 5 crown Lane Wollongong. This was an exhibition featuring 3rd year painters at Wollongong University. There was a great crowd and I managed to snap a few pictures of the artists with their works.
Here is Yamile Salinas with her 3 works “WC1″, “MC1″ and “DC1″. Below she is with her work “J”
Here is Emma Harrison with her work “Aunty Mae”
Here is Shelley Mallitt with two of her works
Here is enthusiastic Amy McCarthy
And here is Sheree Troy with her works. Now I don’t want to pick any favourites to make other people feel left out, but Im going to. The landscape image with multiple figures is my favourite. I fell inlove with it as soon as I saw it. Its beautiful.
If you would like to see these pictures in a larger size, just click on them!
The rest of the works looked fantastic. Good luck to all of the contributors, I hope it goes well!
