And now for something completely different… Last month the San Antonio Zoo welcomed about 1,000 "baby" Moon Jellies. Young jellyfish go through a variety of stages in their development so bear with us on this one…
New Moon Jellies start out as eggs carried by the mama jelly. After fertilization, the eggs hatch into a young larval stage called a planula, which float around for a day or so munching on delicious plankton. After chowing down, these planula float to the sea floor and attach themselves like sea anemones. At this stage they are called polyps, seen below.
These polyps then divide into multiple ephyrae which look like little snowflakes.
These ephyrae eventually grow into medusae, which is the adult form of jellyfish that you have come to know and love, or possibly fear, at the beach…
All of these pictures come courtesy of Eddie Sunila of the San Antonio Zoo and we encourage visitors in the area to go see these strange critters in person. In case it was not clear from the bizarre development cycle outlined above, jellyfish are most definitely not fish.
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