Blue Blubber Jellyfish

We just learned about the Nomura's Jellyfish.

Another type of jellyfish is the Blue Blubber Jellyfish, also called the jelly blubber or catostylus mosaicus.

This type of jelly lives over by Australia, and swims around with lots of other blue blubbers in big swarms.

Sometimes it is blue, or white or even brown, and it grows to be about 18 inches.
They mostly eat small things like plankton or fish, and they have stingers that hurt people but won't kill a human.




(from: wikipedia - jelly blubber)


Blue Blubber Jellyfish Tank --The Aquarium King-- - The Aquarium King


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Grimpoteuthis - Dumbo Octopus

Nomura's Jellyfish

We just learned about the Moon Jellyfish.

Another type of jellyfish is Nomura's Jellyfish.

This is the biggest jellyfish in the world, and can grow to be over 6 feet wide and weigh over 400 pounds!
In only six months they can grow from the size of a grain of rice to 6 feet wide.

They live over near China in the Yellow sea and East China sea.
For food these jellies start eating small things like plankton, but then as they get bigger they will eat some kinds fish.
Other animals that eat these jellies are swordfish, tuna, sunfish and leatherback turtles.
Even some people eat these, and in Japan someone makes a type of vanilla and jellyfish flavored ice cream.

They do have a sting that is painful, but as long as the person gets to a doctor they will be ok.





(from: wikipedia - nomura's jellyfish)


Nomura's Jellyfish, Japan - SuiTube5


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Blue Ringed Octopus

Moon Jellyfish

We just learned about the Flower Hat Jelly.

Another type of jellyfish is the Moon Jellyfish.

This type of small jellyfish only grows to be about 12 inches wide, and is mostly see through.
It lives in cold or hot water in just about every part of the ocean in the world.

They do not move very much, just mostly float around and try to eat up some plankton or fish eggs floating in the water.
Other animals eat these jellyfish a lot, like fish or birds.
Their sting is so little that most people can even pick up this jellyfish and hold it in their hand.




(from: wikipedia - aurelia aurita)


Moon Jellies - PtDefianceZoo1


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Hawaiian Bobtail Squid

Flower Hat Jelly

We just learned about the Crystal Jelly.

Another type of Jellyfish is the Flower Hat Jelly.

These jellies live in the Pacific ocean near Japan and South Korea.
The grownup jellies only live for a few months.

They rest on the bottom of the ocean during the day, then at night they float up to catch their prey, like small fish.
It's bell is mostly clear with a few darker stripes on it.
Around the bell it has tentacles around the rim of their bell that it can use to sting prey.
If a person gets stung by a flower hat jelly they will usually just get a painful rash.

A full grown jelly can grow to be about 6 inches wide.
When they are just starting to grow up, they are usually less than 1 inch wide.




(from: wikipedia - flower hat jelly)


Welcoming Flower-hat Jellies! - Tennessee Aquarium


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Coconut Octopus

Crystal Jelly

We just learned about the Upside Down Jellyfish.

Another type of jellyfish is the Crystal Jelly.

This type of jelly is mostly clear, with lines called radial lines in the bell part of its body called the bell that help it swim.

Around the outside of the bell are small tentacles that it uses to sting its prey, but the sting does not hurt humans.

It's mouth is hanging down in the middle, and this jelly eats very tiny things like plankton or barnacles.

They live mostly in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of California.



(from: wikipedia - aequorea victoria)


Crystal Jellyfish Are Clearly Awesome! - Monterey Bay Aquarium


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: European Squid

Upside-Down Jellyfish

We just learned about the Cauliflower Jellyfish.

Another type of Jellyfish is the Upside-Down Jellyfish, also called the Cassiopea Andromeda.

This kind of jellyfish usually lives in the sand or mud.
A lot of times people think this jelly is a sea anemone because it lays on the ground.
It lays on its back with its arms up waving around, and it uses its bell to keep the water flowing up on its arms.
If some animals come along to its arms, they will get stung and then fall into the jellyfish's mouth that is pointing up.

These jellies also live with algea growing in and around it, and some shrimp, and some other very small animals called zooxanthellae.
These tiny animals help keep other animals away that might hurt the jelly, and the jelly helps keep predators away that might hurt them.





(from: wikipedia - cassiopea andromeda)


[HD] No Sea anemone!!! Upside-down jellyfish / Mangrovenqualle @ Aquazoo [29/52] - FischbottichTV Nils


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Cuttlefish

Cauliflower Jellyfish

We just learned about the Purple Striped Jelly.

Another type of jellyfish is the Cauliflower Jellyfish, also sometimes called the crown jellyfish or cephea.

The rounded top of a jellyfish's body is called the bell.
On top of this jellyfish's bell is what looks like a cauliflower crown, so that is where they get their nickname.

The bell of this jelly is a bluish purple colored skirt, that they use to swim along.
On the bottom of the jelly are large orange brown mouth arms that it uses to eat with, and a bunch of very small tentacles that it uses to sting its prey so it can eat it.





(from: wikipedia - cephea)


Crown Jellyfish - kitachan3


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Chambered Nautilus

Purple Striped Jelly

We just started learning about Jellyfish.

One kind of jellyfish is the Purple Striped Jelly, also called the Chrysaora colorata or the mauve stinger.

This jellyfish lives mostly in the Pacific ocean near California.

The main big body of a jellyfish is called a "bell".
This animal's bell is a little over two feet wide, and usually has stripes going out from the middle, almost like spokes on a bicycle.

Sometimes small crabs called cancer crabs live in the jellyfish, and eat tiny little parasites called amphipods that hurt the jellyfish.

They usually have about eight long skinny dark arms and four frilly oral arms.
These jellies use their long arms to sting their prey, and then bring it over to the frilly oral arms.
The oral arms help to hold on to the prey, and bring it up to the jellyfish's mouth so they can eat it.



(from: wikipedia - chrysaora colorata)


Purple Striped Jelly Montage, Chrysaora Colorata, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, California, USA - Jim Gateley


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Common Octopus

Jellyfish

We just learned a lot about Cephalopods!.

Let's start learning about something new: Jellyfish!.

The fancy name for all of the different types of Jellyfish is "Medusozoa"
They got this name because a famous scientist named Carl Linnaeus thought their long tentacles kind of looked like the snake haired woman named Medusa in Greek mythology.

Some scientists now use the name "jellies" or "sea jellies" instead of jellyfish, because they are not really a kind of fish.

Whatever you call them, these cool weird animals are found all over the world, in all shapes and sizes!


(from: wikipedia - jellyfish)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Cephalopods

Radula

We just learned about the Octopus - Three Hearts.

Another part of a cephalopod's body is the Radula.

We know that the octopus has a beak and that it uses the beak to bite it's food.
After the food gets into its mouth, there are tiny little teeth called the radula that help grind up the food.
It's almost like the octopus has a tongue with spikes on it that it rubs against the food to break it up into tiny pieces.


(from: wikipedia - radula)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Frog Teeth

Octopus - Three Hearts

We just learned about the Statocyst.

Another interesting thing about cephalopod bodies is the Octopus - Three Hearts.

An octopus has all th ree of it's hearts up in the head part of the body.

One of the hearts is called the systemic heart, and it pumps the blood all over their body, all the way to each arm and back.

The other two hearts are called branchial hearts, and they bring the deoxygenated blood back to the gills for more oxygen.

The blood in an octopus is thicker than a human, so it is harder for the octopus to pump through their body.
When they are swimming they do not use their systemic heart, so they get tired quickly and usually stop for a rest.


(from: wikipedia - octopus)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Frog Skin

Statocyst

We just learned about the Cephalopod Skin.

Another part of a squid's body is the Statocyst.

This is a sac inside the squid's head that has small hairs and a hard ball inside it.
When the squid swims around, the ball rolls around inside and moves the hairs, and the squid can tell which way it is swimming.

It also can use this statocyst to hear low sounds, when the sound is loud and the hairs are vibrating the sac.


(from: wikipedia - statocyst)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Tadpoles

Cephalopod - Skin

We just learned about the Cephalopod - Cirrus.

Another interesting thing is the Cephalopod Skin.

Cephalods like the octopus or cuttlefish can change their skin color, or if their skin is bumpy or smooth.
A fancy word for this is polyphenism.

Their skin is made up of an outside layer that has gooey mucous and sensors to tell when it is being touched.

Underneath that top layer is a layer made of collagen, which is like a fatty cell that holds skin together.
There are also cells in that layer for changing the color of the skin.

Most of an octopuses body is made up of soft tissue like collagen, and their squishy body makes it so they can get through really small holes.
They don't have any hard parts of their body except the beak, so even a big octopus can squeeze through a 1 inch hole!


(from: wikipedia - cuttlefish)


Watch The Octopus Squeezing Through Very Tiny Spaces - Animals R Us


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Frogspawn

Cephalopod - Cirrus

We just learned about the Cephalopod Eyes.

Another part of the Cephalopod is the Cirrus.

A cirrus is a type of harder tentacle that doesn't bend as well, and doesn't have any suckers or hooks.
More than one cirrus is called cirri.

The nautilus has cirri that it uses to grab it's prey.
Each cirrus has ridges on it, so they use that to try and hold on really strong.
They hold on so strong with their cirri, that if the prey does get away they have probably ripped the cirri right off!


(from: wikipedia - nautilus)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Masked Tree Frog

Cephalopod Eyes

We just learned about the Cephalopod - Suckers.

Another different part of a cephalopid is the Cephalopod Eyes.

Different cephalopods have different shaped eyes.
Like some octopus have dumbbell shaped eyes, some squids have oval shaped eyes, cuttlefish have W shaped eyes, and nautilus have pinhole shaped eyes.

The one thing cephalopods have the same is that they can all see very well in the dark, but they can't see different colors very well.
Their eyes are built a lot like human eyes, but where our eyes block a lot of light, theirs let in as much as possible so that they can see in the very dark depths of the ocean.





(from: wikipedia - cephalopod eye)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Yellow Spotted Climbing Toad

Cephalopod - Suckers

We just learned about the Cephalopod Tentacle Hooks.

Another part of cephalopods is the Suckers.

Octopuses, squids and cuttlefish have suckers along the inside of their arms, and squids and cuttlefish have suckers at the end of their tentacles.

The outside of the suckers are usually shaped like a circular bowl.
The cephalopods have muscles below their suckers, that they use to make the suckers grab their prey.








(from: wikipedia - cephalopod limb)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Square Marked Toad

Cephalopod - Tentacle Hooks

We just learned about the Cephalopod Arms and Tentacles.

At the end of many squid limbs are Tentacle Hooks.

Different squids have hooks of different shapes, but they use them to grab their prey, hold on to them and pull them to their mouth.



(from: wikipedia - cephalopod limb)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Japanese Tree Frog

Cephalopod - Arms and Tentacles

We just learned about the Cuttlebone.

Another two parts of Cephalopod's body are the Arms and Tentacles.

It used to be that all of the legs of squids and octopuses were called tentacles, but a while back things changed and now they are seen as two different things: arms and tentacles.

The octopus only has 8 arms, because they are shorter and have suckers all along them.
Squids have 6 arms and 2 tentacles, and the tentacles are the ones with no suckers all along, but teeth or hooks on the end.




(from: wikipedia - cephalopod limb)


If Your Hands Could Smell, You’d Be an Octopus - Deep Look

Kid Facts - Blast from the past: African Dwarf Frog

Cuttlebone

We just learned about the Chromatophore.

Another part of some cephalopods is the Cuttlebone.

Just like you might think from the name, this is part of the cuttlefish.

It is a bone inside the cuttlefish that has a pocket for air.
The cuttlefish uses this to control when it floats or sinks.
It uses it's muscles to suck water out of the cuttlebone, which draws more air into it from its body, and it will float up.
Or it will push more water into the cuttlebone and it will sink.



(from: wikipedia - cuttlebone)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Stony Creek Frog