2018 will soon be history, and, it occurred to me this merry Monday morning that we haven't had any jellyfish photos this year... not one!
Say WHAT?
Anyway, this is an oversight I am compelled to correct. CNN helped me out by posting a video today of the little darling above, found off the coast of Puerto Rico.
Actually, it's similar to a hydromedusa which made a big splash in cyberspace 2 years ago... one I somehow missed. Just in case you did, too, a video can also be found here.
But, our poster-child is also similar to another (smaller) jellyfish - the tiny sweetheart above - which is even older news (although I think I may have even mentioned him on PMB at some point in the past). In any case, he, she (or it) is worthy of a few more words... especially in light of the alchemical papillon highlighted in the previous post. The papillon has nothing on this creature! While the papillon miraculously decomposes itself and then composes itself into a new form, the Turritopsis dohrnii, regardless of its age, can revert itself back to square one - an immature stage - and start all over again... as often as it likes! In other words, theoretically, it can live forever. According to its website:
"Turritopsis dohrnii is now officially known as the only immortal creature. The secret to eternal life, as it turns out, is not just living a really, really long time. It’s all about maturity, or rather, the lack of it. The immortal jellyfish (as it is better known popularly) propagate and then, faced with the normal career path of dying, they opt instead to revert to a sexually immature stage.
It turns out that once the adult form of the 4.5 mm-wide species Turritopsis dohrnii have reproduced, they don’t die but transform themselves back into their juvenile polyp state. Their tentacles retract, their bodies shrink, and they sink to the ocean floor and start the cycle all over again. Among laboratory samples, all the adult Turritopsis observed regularly undergo this change. And not just once: they can do it over and over again."
Also, see: This Jellyfish May Actually Make Humans Immortal!; meanwhile, a 2017 video (in English) can be found here.
