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Bioluminescent Comb Jelly — printable fact sheet
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Bioluminescent Comb Jelly
Ctenophora spp.
The Bioluminescent Comb Jelly is a common name for the many light-producing species of comb jellies (phylum Ctenophora), delicate gelatinous invertebrates that drift through the world's oceans from sunlit surface waters down into the deep sea. They swim using eight rows of beati…
Did you know?
- Comb jellies are so ancient and unusual that scientists still debate whether they — rather than sponges — represent the very first branch of the entire animal family tree.
- Comb jellies are the largest animals known to swim using cilia rather than muscles or fins. The shimmering rainbow that runs along their bodies is not bioluminescence — it is light scattering off their moving comb rows, and it is visible even in daylight. Their true bioluminescence is a separate blue-green glow produced by photoproteins, usually triggered when they are disturbed in the dark. Although they look like jellyfish, comb jellies belong to an entirely different and very ancient animal phylum, Ctenophora. They have no stinging cells at all, capturing prey instead with glue-like cells called colloblasts.
What I learned
Draw the bioluminescent comb jelly
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