Random Reasons the Lion's Mane Jellyfish Is One of the Ocean's Weirdest Creatures (12 items)

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  (#1) A Lion's Mane Jellyfish Is SO Big

  HOW BIG IS IT? Well, a belly of these particular jellyfish grow to be eight feet wide, and its tentacles reach out to be 120 feet long. Impressive. That's longer than the entire length of a blue whale, one of the largest creatures in the ocean. 
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  (#2) Très European

  The lion's mane jellyfish isn't something you're going to run into while you're snorkeling in the Bahamas, instead you have to find yourself in the chilly waters of the Arctic, northern Atlantic, and northern Pacific Oceans. So throw on your water goggles and dive into the English Channel or the Scandinavian waters of Kattegat and Øresund. 
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  (#3) They've Got Some Very Grabby Tentacles

  If you've got tentacles that reach out to 120 feet, then it's likely you'll use them for something. The lion's mane jellyfish can reach out with each individual tentacle - of which it has many - and grab its prey for a nice little snack. But what's an LMJ snacking on? This underwater dynamo has a diet of small fish, sea creatures, and other jelly fish. 
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  (#4) Their Greatest Enemy Is a Big Leathery Turtle

  Every animal needs a nemesis, and the lion's mane jellyfish has a mortal enemy in the leatherback sea turtle that feeds almost exclusively on jelly. Obviously not just any jelly, specifically they need to eat jellyfish. Because the lion's mane isn't very dense the turtles have to eat gobs of it. Lion's mane jellyfish have no hope of outrunning a leatherback turtle, all the turtles have to do is find the balloon like jellyfish and slurp them up. 
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  (#5) Let's Talk About Sex (Jelly) Baby

  Lion's mane jellyfish have pushed aside the entire need for a mate to help with procreation. This mammoth of a sea creature carries both eggs and sperm. Once an egg is fertilized, the female of the species carries it on its tentacles until they develop into larvae. At maturation the larvae are deposited onto a hard surface and become polyps, then the polyps transform into stacks of smaller creatures - which is insane - and grow into a living jellyfish. That's incredibly unsettling.  
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  (#6) One of These Bad Boys Might Have Stung 150 People

  First of all, if you're going to be stung by a jellyfish it should be a lion's mane jellyfish - they might be big but they don't pack much of a bite. Although if you get tangled up in multiple tentacles, you should probably seek immediate medical attention. On July 21, 2010, more than 150 people were stung by the remains of a lion's mane jellyfish that had broken apart off the coast of Rye, NH. Its tentacles were still full of venom and filled the surf. 
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  (#7) Lion's Mane Jellyfish Are Closer to Benedict Cumberbatch Than You'll Ever Be

  Leave it to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to be ahead of the curve when it comes to writing about cool fish, jelly or otherwise. Ya boy Lion's Mane appears in the Sherlock Holmes short story The Adventure of the Lion's Mane, and it's discovered at the end of the story that the stone cold killer of a professor who died while swimming and shouting "the lion's mane!" was actually killed by a jellyfish and not a lion, or whatever. 
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  (#8) These Fish Have Benefitted from Overfishing

  Unless you're some kind of nut you know the ocean is not only heating up, it's also being overfished, and one of the few things benefiting from this catastrophic event is the lion's mane jellyfish. These monsters of the sea actually thrive in areas that have been wrecked by humans and climate change. Not only has climate change killed off their predators, but it has promoted more jellyfish swarms. So if nothing else we can look out for melting polar ice caps and an ocean full of stinging sea monsters. 
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  (#9) They're One of the Oldest Living Species - Older Even Than Dinosaurs

  It turns out that lion's mane jellyfish have been hanging around the ocean longer than the dinosaurs. They've been floating around the ocean for 650 million years. It's likely they haven't changed much since they were birthed from the gross ectogoo that life sprung from. Yum. 
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  (#10) And You Thought All Animals Needed Eyes

  This giant jellyfish decided to never evolve eyes onto its globule head thing. Instead, they're able to detect light and dark but no shapes or colors. When you live at the bottom of the sea you don't really need eyes, although it would be very cute if giant jellyfish had to go around wearing swim goggles. 
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  (#11) It's Got No Brain

  Okay so they don't have eyes, they surely have to have brains right? Nope. Lisa-Ann Gershwin, a marine biologist with Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization said what many people have been thinking for quite some time. “A brain is kinda overrated, really. We find it kind of entertaining, and a little bit important, but they do all the stuff they need to do without a brain. But so do venus fly traps. Lots of things can actually do kind of sophisticated behaviors without a brain.” These super sized sea creatures actually have nerve bundles that run all of like low grade Apple 2s. 
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  (#12) It Has a Very Short Life Span

  Sorry sweeties, but your new favorite animal only lives for one year. It's isn't fair that if such a sweet underwater monster manages to survive the chomps of an angry sea turtle that it should die off in around 365 days. If it makes you feel better the lion's mane's life span exists in four stages where it makes more jellyfish. It's all very circle life. 

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