This Sunday November 3 is World Jellyfish Day – but, funnily enough, there is no sting in this tale!
That’s because here in North East Lincolnshire – as with much of the UK coastline – it is the Moon Jellyfish that frequents our coastline. Moon Jellies are often found washed up on the beach and blooms can also be seen in Alexandra Dock, in Grimsby.
The Moon Jellyfish is around the size of a plate, it is recognisable by the four circles visible through the translucent white bell. These four circles are gonads, the reproductive organs located at the bottom of the stomach, and they are normally purple in colour.
Moon Jellies have short, delicate tentacles that hang down from the sides of the bell. They catch their plankton prey using a layer of mucus over their bells, before passing the microscopic meals into their mouth parts using special tentacles.
And the good news is that their sting is not strong enough to penetrate human skin so they can even be touched, although we do not recommend it. Jellyfish are 95% water and have no brain, blood or heart.
The largest populations of jellyfish are prevalent in the southern hemisphere, in places like Australia and South Africa, where the beaches are teeming with these sometimes dangerous creatures. World Jellyfish Day is celebrated in the springtime in the southern hemisphere, as this is the season when jellyfish will begin their migration to our shores.
Celebrating jellyfish is a difficult task, but for those of you out and about on our coast this weekend you can have some fun counting the jellyfish you see, and reporting them to the Marine Conservation Society’s jellyfish recording scheme National Jellyfish Survey which celebrated its 20th year in 2023. The survey provides a baseline of data about jellyfish in UK and Irish waters, which can indicate change and be used for scientific studies.
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