Lion Mane Jellyfish are beautiful, but an encounter with them can be painful. These jellies can sink you even as they die. Here you can learn how to identify lion mane jellyfish and how to prevent it.
The lion’s mane jellyfish lives in the icy waters of the North Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the North Sea, and the Baltic Sea; it is numerous in the coastal waters east of Brittany. It frequents the seabed in the form of an octopus and the open sea in that of a jellyfish.
It is one of the largest jellyfish in the world: in fact, some record individuals can reach the 2 meters in diameter of the umbrella. Its body made up of 94 percent water and gelatinous consistency has the shape of a hemispherical umbrella, on whose lower part 8 groups of 150 tentacles each are fixed. With no tentacles along the edges, the umbrella can be pink, reddish-golden, or purplish-brown.
They edge the mouth with yellow or reddish tentacles, which form a mane. Some 8 lobes into which the body divides contain sense organs as olfactory and light receptors.
The lion’s mane jellyfish is a skilled swimmer which can reach high speeds and cover enormous distances with the help of sea currents. It preys on many fish by wrapping them with its tentacles and stunning them with the poison of the endoblasts, which is also annoying for humans.
Lion Mane Jellyfish: Interesting facts:
- Lion’s mane jellyfish eat various sea animals: small crustaceans, plankton, fish, and even its own species, other jellyfish. They can descend into a column of water, spreading long, thin tentacles like a web and catching prey on the go.
- Reproduction occurs sexually in the medusa stage. Under its bell, the lion’s mane jellyfish must alternate 4 strip-like gonads with 4 degrees folded lips. Lion Mane Jellyfish has separate sex. The egg is captured orally by tentacles and fertilized by the sperm. The larvae called Planula develop and settle on the ocean floor, where they become a polyp. Once in the polyp stage, reproduction can occur asexually as the polyp’s discs divide. Like a stack of discs, it floats as an Ephyra that develops the top disc into the distal medusa stage.
- Probably encountering a lion’s mane jellyfish will not be lethal, but it will not be fun, either. A lion’s mane jellyfish sting often results in pain and redness in pain.