Creature Feature – Immortal Jellyfish
It’s Creature Feature Friday! This week is the letter ‘I’, and today’s featured creature is the Immortal Jellyfish.
Despite having no brains, no heart and no blood, jellyfish have survived for more than 500 million years – even predating dinosaurs! And this species has a particularly special ability.
Taxonomy
Scientific Name: Turritopsis dohrnii
Phylum: Cnidaria
Order: Anthoathecata
Family: Oceaniidae
Genus: Turritopsis
Immortal Jellyfish Fact File
Size: Individuals are bell-shaped and have a maximum diameter of about 4.5 millimetres
Distribution: This species is believed to have originated in the Pacific, but has since spread all over the world through trans-Arctic migrations, and has speciated into several populations
Diet: A carnivorous species, their diet mainly consists of plankton, fish eggs and small molluscs
Behaviour: Whilst most jellyfish species have a relatively fixed lifespan, the ‘immortal jellyfish’ is the only species known to possess the ability to return to a polyp (the other stage of their lifecycle) state, through a specific transformation process. This ability is unique in the animal kingdom and allows the species to bypass biological death, potentially enabling it to be immortal. However, this does not stop it being eaten by predators or succumbing to disease
IUCN Status: Not Evaluated. However, many species of Jellyfish are listed as vulnerable (population trend decreasing)
