Jellyfish Animal Study & Lapbook

Cover Page	Predators T-book
Book Log	Lifecycle Strips
Anatomy Shutterfold	Fast Facts File Folders
Classification Twice Folded	On the Move
Finding Jellies & Dinner Matchbooks	Hunting & Protection
Vocabulary Lotto Boards	Size Fan

Information
compiled by Clementine Calleja

Habitat/Where on the map

Jellyfish are found in every ocean in the world. Where there's salt water—from icy polar seas to tropical Pacific shores—there are jellyfish.
Finding Jellies Matchbook

Classification

Jellyfish belong to a group of soft, boneless sea animals called cnidarians (neye-DAYR-ee-uhns), one of the most common groups of sea animals. Other animals that belong to this family include sea anemones, corals, sea fans, and freshwater hydras. Classification Twice Folded

Anatomy

Jellyfish are simple creatures that come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. A jellyfish is little more than a stomach surrounded by a bell-shaped body. They have no bones, ears, eyes, hearts or brains! And because they are invertebrates, which means they’re animals that lack backbones, their bodies are like jelly. That’s how they got their name!

They also don’t have any lungs or gills. They absorb oxygen through their skins instead.

Fast fact – some Jellyfish have light sensors called eye spots. These sense sunlight coming through the water’s surface. They help jellyfish determine which direction is up!

Its mouth is located at the center of the bell’s underside.

Some jellyfish may have four to eight frilly oral arms. These surround a jellyfish’s mouth and digestive tube which look like a short tube hanging down from the center of its body.

Some also have tentacles, which hang down from their bells.

Anatomy Shutterfold

The smallest jellyfish are much less than one inch wide, about the size of a fingernail. The largest jellyfish can grow to eight feet across and more than 100 feet long. Fast fact – the arctic lion’s mane jellyfish is the world’s largest jellyfish. Its tentacles make it the longest animal in the sea. The largest one on records was 120 feet long. That’s longer than two school buses. Size Fan

Fast fact – A jellyfish’s body is about 95% water. If jellyfish is taken out of the water, it quickly dries up and dies.

Fast fact – Some jellyfish can produce light by a process called bioluminescence, just like fireflies. This enables them to communicate in the dark, either at night or deep beneath the sea.

Lifecycle

Jellyfish have a complicated life cycle and go through several stages before becoming adults.

Most jellyfish begin life in an egg. After a few days, the egg develops into a tiny animal called a planula. It looks like a worm and is transparent. It can swim but mostly just floats. After a few days or weeks, the planula changes into a tub- like creature called a polyp and sinks to the bottom of the water. A polyp has a mouth and tentacles but cannot swim. It’s stuck to the ocean floor. It eats by stinging animals that swim nearby. Small saucer-shaped disks begin to grow from the polyp. After a few weeks or months, a polyp has many disks which eventually break off. The disks float around for about a week. By the end of the week, each disk becomes a medusa, which is another name for an adult jellyfish.
Lifecycle Strips

Fast fact- Most jellyfish only live to be about a year old.

Locomotion

Jellyfish can expand and contract their fluid bodies to move. This looks like an umbrella opening and closing. When a jellyfish contracts its body, the water inside it is forced out. This moves the jellyfish forward. The process is a simple form of jet propulsion. Even with this skill, they’re not very efficient swimmers. Instead, water currents and strong winds usually determine their path and many find themselves washed up on beaches. On the Move Simple Fold

Fast fact – Unlike fish, jellyfish don’t have swim bladders to keep them afloat. If a jellyfish stops pumping its body, it sinks to the bottom of the ocean.

Diet

Most jellyfish are carnivores but they don’t chase their prey. Instead, they wait for small animals to swim or draft into their tentacles. They feed mostly on a variety of small animals like zooplankton, comb jellies, small fish and occasionally other jellyfish. Dinner Matchbook

Jellyfish tentacles are well equipped for hunting food. They contain stinging cells that explode when they come into contact with prey. Then, the stinging cells shoot tiny threads of toxins into the animal. This paralyzes their prey. Hunting with Tentacles Simple Fold

One type of jellyfish, called the Cassiopea or upside-down jellyfish, doesn’t hunt at all. Instead it grows lots of very small plants called algae inside its transparent body. The algae make food for the jellyfish from sunlight, using the process called photosynthesis.

Predators/Defense

For jellyfish, the oceans are very dangerous. Many animals, which are not affected by their stings and have strong mouths and stomachs, like to eat jellyfish. These include spadefish, sunfish, large sea snails, sea turtles, crabs and some birds. Even some humans like to eat jellyfish!
Predators T-book

Some jellyfish use their stinging tentacles to keep them from getting eaten. Box jellyfish are some of the deadliest creatures in the world, killing more people than sharks! If a human is stung by one of these jellyfish, he or she may die within minutes.

Sometimes, instead of swimming alone, jellyfish form groups called smacks. This increases their chances of defending themselves and escaping.

Jellyfish also use their transparency to hide from predators. Even the colorful kinds of jellyfish are transparent, or clear like glass. This quality makes them difficult to se in the water. This gives them some defense from enemies because jellyfish have few places to hide. Protection Tri-fold

Vocabulary

Bell – the umbrella-shaped body of a jellyfish

Bioluminescence- a chemical reaction that causes an organism to glow

Carnivore – meat-eating animal

Colony – a group of animals of one kind living together

Current – the flow and movement of a large body of water

Gelatinous – jellylike

Invertebrate – an animal with no backbone

Paralyze – to make unable to move

Predator – an animal that eats other animals

Propulsion – something that drives forward or adds speed to an object

Smack – group of jellyfish