Are jellyfish made up of a colony?
Asked by
syz (
36034
)
August 16th, 2007
My (ex)boyfriend and I fought over this - I remember reading at some point that an individual jellyfish is made up of independent animals that form a cooperative colony and diversify into various roles - am I smoking crack? I can't find any references.
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3 Answers
No jellyfish are a single creature. They are related to corals which or not single creatures.By the way they have no brain. Is not that the weirdest thing (considering this site and its jellyfish representation ).
gooch is correct.
your missive reminded me of something I had read a long time ago about embryo (or maybe brain) development. ...cells migrating along glial cells and then differentiating when they reach their destination. yes, I think it was brain development.
hope this reassures you. I can’t speak for your sobriety. ;)
You were sort of right.
I suspect that you recall reading an article on a marine invertebrate commonly known as the Portuguese Man o’ War.
Sometimes, this creature is mistakenly referred to as a jellyfish. That is understandable because it certainly looks like one; but, under the scientific classification of animals the Man o’ War belongs in a different Class and Order than the jellyfish.
The Man o’ War is a colony of four specialized individual animals that combine to make a complete creature. This integration is so complete that the individual animals can’t survive on their own.
For more information try the following Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Man_o%27_War
I think you will find that Wikipedia’s description accords with yours.
I hope this information was useful to you
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