Jellyfish Swarm World’s Oceans

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/01/090130-immortal-jellyfish-swarm.html

This article was written by Ker Than for National Geographic News on January 29, 2009. It is about a recent study concluding that there are giant swarms of a type of “immortal” jellyfish that is infesting the world’s oceans.

Although the Turritopsis dohrnii, a type of jellyfish, was discovered in the Mediterranean sea in the 1800’s, the knowledge of this species special ability to be immortal was not discovered until the 1900’s. The jellyfish reproduces by free floating eggs and sperm in the ocean, creating, at full size, a creature about the size of a pinky nail. When damage occurs to the jellyfish it is able to transform all its’ cells back into a younger state. They create a polyp colony, which is the original form of the jellyfish, and restart the life cycle again by hatching hundreds of new identical creatures. Researchers collected specimens from all over the world and found them all to be indistinguishable from the other origins.