Jellyfish Anatomy

The adults are either male or female but in some species they change their sex as they age. The anatomy of a jellyfish is very interesting to examine in depth.

Moon Jellyfish Anatomy Jellyfish Life Cycles Ocean Themes

The jellyfish is a simple invertebrate but they are able to move better than others that fall into that same classification.

Jellyfish anatomy. Illustration showing the anatomy of true jellyfish class scyphozoa. These jellies ingest food directly through openings in their oral arms. The medusa is normally the sexual phase the planula larva can disperse widely and is followed by a sedentary polyp phase.

The life cycle of free swimming scyphozoan jellyfish typically consists of three stages. Jellyfish have a complex life cycle. These long appendages move captured prey to the animals mouth which is usually found on the underside of the bell.

A sessile polyp scyphistoma stage asexually buds off young medusae from its upper end with each such ephyra growing into an adult. Some species have even ditched a mouth entirely. They are well known for their swift and graceful movements through the ocean waters.

The body of a jellyfish features a central axis point. In jellyfish the transparent mesoglea layer is quite thick. Jellyfish often called jellies sometimes called jelly fish wrongly because of their soft gelatinous bodies and trailing tentacles are free swimming umbrella shaped marine animals which belong to the phylum cnidaria.

Jellyfish are the simplest swimming animals on earth. By contrast humans are about 65 percent water the high water content of jellyfish explains why they immediately collapse into defeated deflated blobs when removed from water. Each tentacle is covered with cells called cnidocytes a type of venomous cell unique to the phylum cnidaria that can sting or kill other animals.

The anatomy of a jellyfish is like no other free swimming marine animal. They are composed of about 95 percent water. Among their many tentacles some jellyfish have parts known as oral arms.

The body of an adult jellyfish consists of a bell shaped hood enclosing its internal structure and from which tentacles are suspended. Jellyfish are found all over the world from surface waters to the deep sea.

Atolla Jellyfish Ami 2018 Meeting