It is commonly known as the fried egg jellyfish, and no other name would have been more appropriate. It has a dark yellow cupola on top of its bell, a transparent flounce, and it moves like an egg being flipped by a cook.
I swim beside a Mediterranean Cassiopeia – Cotylorhiza tuberculata by its classification name – and observe it closely while it floats through the sea. The flying egg fluctuates with an undisturbed gait, suggesting a more feminine image: it resembles a lady with a yellow hat and a short skirt. Rising at every pace, that skirt hardly hides a violet petticoat of tubercules, giving her an insolent look. Apparently, she isn’t in a hurry and enjoys being admired: the colours are bright, the body so ethereal that it could have been made of glass. I slide underneath to observe her movements: for a couple of minutes, the lady teaches me to tango.
The Mediterranean Cassiopeia is not poisonous, but I have no intention to annoy her: we swim together for a while until I finally reach the shore to lay myself down in the sun. Suddenly I perceive a certain nervousness. A clamour arises, a woman yells to her husband and the man plunges into the water. After a moment, he returns to the shore with a sad booty hooked on a branch: two jellyfishes, one of which was my swimming companion. He leaves them on a rock: two glassy bodies drying in the sun. I avert my eyes from that scene, but I am left with a question: do people know what amazing creatures jellyfishes are?
Jellyfishes have been drifting along the currents, adapting and thriving, since the dawning of the world. Although very simple anatomically – they have no brains, no bones, no gills, only rudimentary sense organs – they are one of the most diverse creatures in the animal kingdom. Their taxonomy is so complex, that they don’t even occupy the same branch of the family tree. Some of them, for instance, are more closely related to corals than to other jellyfishes.
They are also very unlike in many aspects: they have different shapes and sizes, live in different habitats, display different behaviours. Even their gastrovascular apparatus can have different levels of complexity and their developmental stages can vary, being present or absent of the polipoid phase.
More astonishing is their sexual behaviour: they can develop sexually or asexually and are able to make copies of themselves. Some of them can even reverse their ageing process, this representing a real conundrum for scientists.
But jellyfishes can be surprising for the characteristics they have in common, too. Typically, they propel in the water by contracting their muscles and moving their tentacles. They possess stinging cells, which they use to paralyze or kill the prey.
Their life cycle can change, but it is in general an eclectic metamorph of phases. Jellyfishes release sperm or up to 40.000 eggs a day in the water. These fertilized eggs become larvae, and larvae later grow into stationary polips. Polips reproduce after days or even years and jellyfishes that don’t reproduce sexually become clones.
Generally, the sting of jellyfishes is the main source of prejudice against them. Nonetheless, only some specific kind of venom can cause an adverse reaction in humans: we represent probably more of a threat to them than they to us. A certain diffidence is comprehensible, but not justifiable, especially here in the urbanized coasts of the Mediterranean sea.
Many years ago I was stung by a medusa, which left a strong, bothersome sensation and, for several months, a brown mark under my armpit. I must admit, however, that I had my share of the fault since I had been warned in advance about the swarm of jellyfishes’ arrival and since the scuba mask I was using while swimming was fogged. I hadn’t seen the animal, and it made me conscious of its presence.
It has been claimed that massive waves of jellyfishes are caused by climate change and that they are constantly increasing. Events like these attract the attention of the media. But the reality is more complex: while invasions gain records, the absence of jellyfishes is often unrecorded. They grow and diminish naturally and there’s limited knowledge about eventual variations in the number of its components.
On the beach, the two dead jellyfishes aren’t easily forgotten. Occasionally a bather goes to see them, a woman points its finger to the rock and a kid pierces them with a stick, just to prove their consistency. They still capture attention, but it’s the attention we devolve to the exoticism of a dead object, not to the delicate, living fluidity that mesmerized me before.
The day passes by and people enjoy a place they believe they made safer for their children and themselves. The two dangerous creatures are drying under the sun, motionless scapegoats of our own superiority. They are no more than a fetish, waiting for the next brave human that will dare to get close to them and try to touch their tentacles.
I have a feeling of an occasion lost, of a gift not accepted, of a wonder ignored.
I think about these ancient animals, their otherwordly appearance and their heritage of adaptation. I consider the need they have to be respected and to see their beauty cherished. We should all learn to appreciate the privilege of swimming close to them; we should all make a treasure of our personal discovery of nature.
Marianna Morè
She lives close to Venice and has a passion for the sea, for travelling and for theater plays. She writes both in Italian and English, but she also likes to chat in German. Her stories have been published by Sevenseas Media, Scubazone Bolina and by a local newspaper. Visit her page HERE!
This piece was prepared online by Panuruji Kenta, Publisher, SEVENSEAS Media
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