Reply from the official account of the institute: We have not measured the exact size, but we can roughly estimate its size with a laser measuring instrument-the outer ring diameter of the tube jellyfish is about 15 meters, so the outermost ring is 47 meters long. Therefore, the value of 47 meters has been quoted by many domestic and foreign media, and many of them mistakenly understand that the total length of this jellyfish is 47 meters, which undoubtedly greatly underestimates the size of this jellyfish.
The real content of the tube jellyfish is shown in the figure below. You can see that it is like a thin line, arranged like a spiral galaxy. The widely quoted 47 meters is actually the length of the outermost circle, which is obtained by multiplying the maximum diameter 15 meters by 3. 14, and the length of the whole jellyfish obviously far exceeds this figure.
Giant tube jellyfish found in Australia
How long is the jellyfish? An article pointed out that the spokesman of the institute revealed that its total length was 390 feet, that is, nearly 1 19 meters, which seemed quite close to the fact. However, yesterday, Nerida Wilson, a scientist specializing in marine invertebrates, said in a social account: "The jellyfish we found caught fire and landed in The New York Times, but I must point out that its body length is only the most preliminary investigation at present, and we are measuring it carefully and accurately."
It was her research team that discovered this jellyfish. According to the consistent experience of zoology, before the paper is officially published, the animal body size values transmitted through the media are not necessarily correct, and the most accurate ones are after formal research. This is the meaning of Professor Wilson's speech.
No matter how long this jellyfish is, we believe that this number must be amazing. The next question is what kind of tube jellyfish this is. In fact, this behemoth is not a real jellyfish (Lepidoptera), but its real identity is as follows: animal kingdom-Echinoptera (formerly known as Coelenterata)-Hydra-Cephalopoda-Echinoptera-member of Lepidoptera.
Berry-winged jellyfish
Aponymia is the only genus of Aponymiaceae, while Tottonia used to be a genus, and now it is considered as a synonym for Aponymia. At present, there are five effective species, which are composed of three genera of type species and two species newly identified in 20 13.
One of the most common jellyfish is the model species: jellyfish, which can grow to amazing lengths. People once found 30 meters long Apolemiauvaria berry in the Mediterranean Sea. As for this time, it is not clear what kind of jellyfish it is, but it has obviously surpassed the berry jellyfish in length.
Berry-winged jellyfish are also distributed in China, which are widely distributed in various oceans and inhabit the middle and upper waters. This jellyfish is described in the taxonomic research work of Hydra and Hydra in China, "Hydra Echinoptera in China". Its air support is spherical, the swimming bell has two big wings, and there are 5~6 tentacles near the main pipe of the swimming bell.
The indefinite para jellyfish, the former record holder of the length of the tube jellyfish.
In the past, people have found some amazing marine invertebrates, such as another giant tube jellyfish, Praya dubia, which can reach 40 meters, and giant nematodes (usually considered as the longest animal, but the record of 55 meters in19th century may not be reliable, and the conservative upper limit may only be guaranteed to exceed 30 meters). The number of big wing jellyfish discovered this time obviously exceeds these two species, but this kind of tube jellyfish, which can be called "the longest animal in the world", is not a single individual in a strict sense.
The tube jellyfish did not grow into a single whole like most animals on the earth, but produced tens of thousands or even millions of individuals through countless clones, which were connected in series to form a huge community. These clones have a professional biological name called "individual". Members are divided into several different functional types, and different types of members perform their duties in the whole community, forming an extremely deadly team, or more accurately, a super individual.
There are two kinds of members of tube jellyfish: hydra jellyfish and hydra jellyfish, which show obvious polymorphic characteristics. Among them, hydra jellyfish have swimming bells, leaflike bodies, air supports and germ cells, while hydra jellyfish have vegetative bodies, reproductive bodies and fingers. These people's functions are very professional. For example, the swimming clock is responsible for providing electricity to the jellyfish community, usually at the front end of the community. Finger preys on plankton, crustaceans and small fish with tentacles, vegetative body is responsible for eating and digesting food, and germ cells and reproductive bodies are naturally used for reproduction. In addition, there are leaflike bodies covering the body surfaces of other individuals for protection.
Under the lens, we can notice that it has produced some buds, which will eventually form new members.
After a general understanding of the functions of these members, let's look back at the arrangement of this giant tube jellyfish. It can be seen that the whole body is spiral, covering a wide range like a huge fishing net, and most of the bodies over 100 meters long have tentacles and deadly venom. For the prey who unfortunately pass through here, this is simply a perfect design in the encirclement.
Once the prey is caught, the nutrients will soon be swallowed and digested, and then the nutrients will be transported to the whole community through the long digestive tract, so that all members of the community can get nutritional supplements. In such a community composed of countless tiny individuals, predation and digestion are quite efficient. In addition, Luoning has the largest coastal reef in the world, and the marine life is quite rich, which can be said to be a rich sea. It is precisely because of this that this tube jellyfish community can grow to such a huge scale.
Marrus orthocanna is a deep-sea tube jellyfish, its digestive system and circulatory system are red, and the rest are transparent.
Among all the planktonic hydra, the life form of vascular jellyfish is the most complicated. Practice has proved that this combined clustering model has achieved great success, and the diversity of the whole hydra jellyfish is considerable. The systematic taxonomic study in 20 17 years shows that there are 65438 effective families, at least 177 effective species, and the body size of Hydromedusa ranges from 65438.
Except Rhodaliidae, a semi-benthic family of Rosaceae, all the tube jellyfish float in the sea all their lives, which enables them to enter all the oceans, and most species have reached global distribution. Although some species are confined to tropical or temperate zones, some have conquered Arctic and Antarctic waters.