Picspam: Jellies
20 Facts about Jellyfish that are totally not mainstream
1) Jellyfish pre-date dinosaurs. (And I was totally into them then)
2) Even a dead jellyfish can still sting you. (Cause actually being useless after death is just for posers)
3) When jellyfish swim in large groups, they are known as blooms. (Leave the schools to those who need to be schooled)
4) Both male and female jellyfish have the ability to reproduce both sexually and asexually. (Spurn those mainstream labels!)
5) Speaking of which, single jellyfish can release as many as 45,000 eggs each day. (And you thought your siblings were annoying)
6) One box jellyfish has enough venom in it to kill sixty people. (H. H. Holmes and Bundy each only accounted for about 30. What posers)
7) Jellyfish are actually misnamed. Without gills, they are not fish, but rather sea jellies. (So stop labeling them!)
8) Jellyfish never stop growing (don't be size-ist, they can't help it)
9) The biggest jellyfish ever found had a diameter of 8 feet and its tentacles were half the length of a football field. (Not a mainstream football field, of course, but an underground one)
10) In some cultures, jellyfish is considered a delicacy. (Of course, not in mainstream places, but I've been eating it for years at this little bistro you've probably never heard of)
11) The Box Jelly has 24 eyes, but limited vision (Why yes, those glasses are necessary)
12) Most species of Jellyfish have no brains, no central nervous system, no respiratory system, no circulatory system, and no digestive system. They "breathe" by diffusing water through their membranous skin. (Because organs are just so lame)
13) The nickname jellyfish for creatures in the Medusazoa subphylum and similar-looking creatures has been in use since the 1790's. (Now that's retro)
14) The smallest jellyfish species have bell disks that can be as small as .5 mm diameter, and they crawl along the bottoms. They also reproduce asexually by splitting in half aka fission. (Just to prove all those giant jellyfish stereotypes wrong, ya know)
15) While most jellyfish live in salt water (and actually decrease in population during heavy rains due to desalination) some do live in fresh water. (Don’t be hating on their low-sodium lifestyle)
16) Jellyfish are carnivores and some are cannibalistic, but all of this is done passively, rather than actively. (Didn't you hear that cannibalism was the new veganism?)
17) In 2010, in New Hampshire, the pieces of a single Lion's Mane jellyfish that died and washed ashore stung between 125 and 150 people (Now that is crowdsourcing)
18) Jellyfish can clog equipment and pipes, including those of desalination plants, ship engines, and power plants. (Yeah, they've actually caused rolling blackouts before it was cool)
19) More people die every year from jellyfish stings than from shark attacks. (Whadaya think of them apples, Jaws?)
20) In toxic dead zones, such as the Gulf of Mexico, jellyfish are one of the few species that can survive. (Yeah, even toxic sludge is no match for them)
God, 20 is such a mainstream number. Anyway, I hope you learned something new about these awesome creatures.
