Description
The medusa of Turritopsis nutricula is bell-shaped, with a maximum diameter of about 4.5 millimetres (0.18 in) and is about as tall as it is wide. The jelly in the walls of the bell is uniformly thin, except for some thickening at the apex. The relatively large stomach is bright red and has a cruciform shape in cross section. Young specimens 1 mm in diameter have only eight tentacles evenly spaced out along the edge, while adult specimens have 80-90 tentacles. The medusa (jellyfish) is free-living in the plankton.
Turritopsis nutricula also has a bottom-living polyp form, or hydroid, which consists of stolons that run along the substrate, and upright branches with feeding polyps that can produce medusa buds. These polyps develop over a few days into tiny 1 mm medusae, which are liberated and swim free from the parent hydroid colony.
Images of both the medusa and polyp of the closely related species Turritopsis rubra from New Zealand can be found online. Until a recent genetic study, it was thought that Turritopsis rubra and Turritopsis nutricula were the same. It is not known whether or not T. rubra medusae can also transform back into polyps.
Read more about this topic: Turritopsis Nutricula
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