A cigar that lights itself! The Cigar Jellyfish (Olindias phosphorica) rolls up during the daytime and rest on the ocean floor. This is why they are called the cigar jellyfish. Come night time they swim in the ocean and extend their tentacles up to thirty feet. This is how they feed on zooplankton and small fish. They can be found at night time in the Central Atlantic Oceans in the European waters, The Mediterranean sea and off Malta. This essay will describe various facts about the cigar jellyfish and also discuss where they live and the hazards they face while being alive. Life is not easy when you are a cigar in the ocean.

 

In this paragraph, I will describe general facts and the characteristics of the Cigar jellyfish. The general size my animal grows to at adulthood is six to four millimeters wide.M embers of the genus Olindias such as the cigar jellyfish, are dome-shaped bells, and have four radial canals and also have centripetal canals. There are a few very primary tentacles along the side growing part way down the jellyfish’s bell with adhesive suckers and cnidocytes in bands. There is also a pair of statocysts adjoining at ever base of each primary tentacle. A way they have that helps them hunt is that there are much larger numbers of these short tentacles called marginal tentacles. They have rings with cnidocytes to help the jellyfish immobilizing prey.

           

As you may have read that my animal is found in the Central Atlantic in the European waters and in the Mediterranean Sea. The cigar jellyfish populations are exploding in the Mediterranean Sea. The Cigar jellyfish are asexual. They only seem to reproduce when the water temperature exceeds at a certain level. The medusae grow to about six centimeters when they reach their adulthood. After they mate they produce buds from their bodies and release them when they drop to the ocean floor and when its time a baby jellyfish come out.

           

Now I will inform what the cigar jellyfish eat and what its feeding habits are and what are its predators. The cigar jellyfish feed on small fish and zooplankton. The way it feeds is after it gets dark because that is when the cigar jellyfish hunts. They extend their tentacles up to thirty feet and wait until the food comes and they pull in there tentacles and push the food into its mouth and starts to digest. Some of the cigar jellyfishes predators are sea anemones and some fish but very rare because of its toxic. The way the cigar jellyfish protects itself is by lighting up its attacker with bioluminescence so the attacker’s predator can feed on the attacker before it gets to the cigar jellyfish.

 

The cigar jellyfish is also bioluminescence which means it can light up. Another reason why it is called a cigar jellyfish because it lights up like a cigar and swims in the ocean during the night hunting for food to catch and eat. The cigar jellyfish can do well in dead-zones, which are places that lack oxygen. Why? Well because their bodies are 95 percent water and can store or hold enough oxygen when they drift into oxygen-poor or dead zone places. As I have told you the cigar jellyfish is a cigar that can light it last, the cigar jellyfish is a great animal it’s very interesting. It can light up like a cigar that lights itself when it gets dark. It was a great animal to do a report on. Very unique and amazing animal. Small but still very cool creature. This my animal report on the Cigar jellyfish.

 

Author: Mikayla W

Published: 02/2013
 

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olindiidae February 16 2013, http://factsanddetails.com/world.php?itemid=1259&catid=53&subcatid=338 February 16, 2013,

. http://www.google.com/ February 16, 2013, http://eol.org February 16, 2013, http://www.answers.com February 16, 2013