Latest Jellyfish Stories

Scientists trying to catch a glimpse of what the underbelly of an ice sheet in Antarctica looks like got the surprise of a lifetime when they found a shrimp-like amphipod and a jellyfish thriving in the subfreezing dark water. Six hundred feet below the ice where no light is found, scientists had believed that nothing more than microbes could exist. But when the NASA team lowered a video camera to the depths to look around, they watched as a curious 3-inch-long Lyssianasid amphipod came...

Research could help lead to antivenoms and treatmentsWith thousands of stinging cells that can emit deadly venom from tentacles that can reach ten feet in length, the 50 or so species of box jellyfish have long been of interest to scientists and to the public. Yet little has been known about the evolution of this early branch in the animal tree of life.In a paper published November 18 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, NOAA researchers Allen Collins, Bastian Bentlage and Cheryl Lewis...

Fishermen have been pulling net after net of jellyfish out of the ocean off the coast of Kokonogi, Japan recently.The Nomura jellyfish, the largest of the creatures, can be up to two meters in diameter and can weigh up to 450 pounds. The venom of these jellyfish can ruin a whole day's catch by killing fish stung when entangled with them in the maze of nets.Fisherman Taiichiro Hamano told the Associated Press, "Some fishermen have just stopped fishing. When you pull in the nets and see...

Scientists have published new descriptions of a range of jelly-like animals that were originally filmed and photographed during a series of dives in the deep oceans of the Arctic in 2005, BBC News reported.Experts say one of the types of jellyfish discovered in the Arctic, which is isolated from much of the water elsewhere on the globe, is completely new to science.The Canadian Basin is one area of the Arctic that is cut off by deep-sea ridges that isolate any species there from other...

Jellyfish and other small swimming marine creatures can have a huge impact on ocean mixing, researchers in California report. Increasingly, scientists have been thinking about the possible role ocean animals may play in larger-scale ocean mixing, the process by which layers of water interact to distribute heat, nutrients and gases throughout the oceans, California Institute of Technology researchers said Thursday in a release. The perspective we usually take is how the ocean -- by its...

The ocean's smallest swimming animals, such as jellyfish, can have a huge impact on large-scale ocean mixing, researchers have discovered."The perspective we usually take is how the ocean--by its currents, temperature, and chemistry--is affecting animals," says John Dabiri, a Caltech bioengineer who, along with Caltech graduate student Kakani Katija, discovered the new mechanism. "But there have been increasing suggestions that the inverse is also important, how the animals...

SAVANNAH, Ga., June 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Jellyfish Squish(TM), an FDA compliant solution that works within minutes to relieve the pain of jellyfish stings, was recently proved to be effective on stings caused by the Portuguese man-of-war. Jellyfish Squish(TM) is produced by Coastal Solutions, Inc. in Savannah, Ga., and can be purchased online and at select stores including drug stores and beach supply stores. In May of 2009 Dr. Peter Verity, a world renowned marine biologist at the Skidaway...

"Biomixing" by floating animals churns waters in oceans, seas, lakesIf you were to snorkel just before dawn at the popular tropical Pacific destination Jellyfish Lake, you'd have lots of company: millions of golden jellyfish, known to scientists as Mastigias papua, mill around the western half of the lake, waiting for sunrise.With the sun's first rays, Jellyfish Lake, located 550 miles east of the Philippines in the island nation of Palau, comes alive. As the sky brightens in the...

Since the days of Charles Darwin, researchers are interested in reconstructing the "Tree of Life", and in understanding the development of animal and plant species during their evolutionary history. In the case of vertebrates, this research has already come quite a long way. But there is still much debate about the relationships between the animal groups that made their apparation very early in evolutionary history, probably in the late Precambrian, some 650� million years ago....

Researchers reported on Friday that huge swarms of stinging jellyfish and similar slimy animals are ruining beaches in Hawaii, the Gulf of Mexico, the Mediterranean, Australia and elsewhere.According to the report, 150 million people are exposed to jellyfish globally each year, with 500,000 people getting stung in the Chesapeake Bay, off the U.S. Atlantic Coast, alone.There is another 200,000 getting stung every year in Florida, and 10,000 are stung in Australia by the deadly Portuguese...