True jellyfish
| Scyphozoa Temporal range: Fortunian – Recent |
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|---|---|
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| Chrysaora colorata | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Cnidaria |
| Subphylum: | Medusozoa |
| Class: |
Scyphozoa Götte, 1887 |
| Subgroups | |
The Scyphozoa are an exclusively marine class of the phylum Cnidaria, referred to as the true jellyfish (or "true jellies"). It may include the extinct fossil group the Conulariida, whose affinities are uncertain and widely debated.
The class name Scyphozoa comes from the Greek word skyphos (σκύφος), denoting a kind of drinking cup and alluding to the cup shape of the organism.
Scyphozoans have existed from the earliest Cambrian to the present.
Most species of Scyphozoa have two life history phases, including the planktonic medusa or jellyfish form, which is most evident in the warm summer months, and an inconspicuous, but longer-lived, bottom-dwelling polyp, which seasonally gives rise to new medusae. Most of the large, often colorful, and conspicuous jellyfish found in coastal waters throughout the world are Scyphozoa. They typically range from 2 to 40 cm (0.79 to 15.75 in) in diameter, but the largest species, Cyanea capillata can reach 2 metres (6.6 ft) across. Scyphomedusae are found throughout the world's oceans, from the surface to great depths; no Scyphozoa occur in freshwater (or on land).
As medusae, they eat a variety of crustaceans and fish, which they capture using stinging cells called . The nematocysts are located throughout the tentacles that radiate downward from the edge of the umbrella dome, and also cover the four or eight oral arms that hang down from the central mouth. Some species, however, are instead filter feeders, using their tentacles to strain plankton from the water.
Scyphozoans usually display a four-part symmetry and have an internal gelatinous material called mesoglea, which provides the same structural integrity as a skeleton. The mesoglea includes mobile amoeboid cells originating from the epidermis.
Scyphozoans have no durable hard parts, including no head, no skeleton, and no specialized organs for respiration or excretion. Marine jellyfish can consist of as much as 98% water, so are rarely found in fossil form.
Unlike the hydrozoan jellyfish, Hydromedusae, Scyphomedusae lack a vellum, which is a circular membrane beneath the umbrella that helps propels the (usually smaller) Hydromedusae through the water. However, a ring of muscle fibres is present within the mesoglea around the rim of the dome, and the jellyfish swims by alternately contracting and relaxing these muscles. The periodic contracting and relaxing propels the jellyfish through the water, allowing it to escape predation or catch its prey.
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Wikipedia