Jellyfish

Jellyfish 

Jellyfish live mainly in the seas, although I've seen them swimming in the river Tejo in Lisbon several times. They aren't technically fish, they are suprise, suprise...PLANKTON! Yeah, sorry. Such creatures either float in water or possess such restricted swimming forces that their horizontal motions are guided by currents. Some plankton are single-celled, small species while others are enormous. Jellyfish, with tentacles up to 100 feet long, can range in size from less than an inch to nearly 7 feet long. Jellyfish also belong to the phylum Cnidaria, (from the Greek word for "stinging nettle") and the class Scyphozoa (from the Greek word for "cup," referring to the body shape of the jellyfish). Both cnidarians are surrounded by tentacles and have a mouth in the middle of their bodies. Cnidarian relatives of the jellyfish include corals, sea anemones and the man-o'-war from Portugal. Jellyfish are approximately 98% water.  

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Author: Brenda Moita 

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