Behavior and Reproduction
Lion's mane jellyfish remain mostly very near the surface at no more than 20 m depth, their slow pulsations weakly driving them forwards; they depend on ocean currents whereby the jellies travel great distances. The jellyfish are most often spotted during the late summer and autumn, when they have grown to a large size and the currents begin to sweep them closer to shore.
Like other jellyfish, Lions manes are capable of both sexual reproduction in the medusa stage and asexual reproduction in the polyp stage. Lion's mane jellyfish have four different stages in their year-long life span: a larval stage, a polyp stage, an ephyrae stage and the medusa stage. The female jellyfish carries its fertilized eggs in its tentacle where the eggs grow into larva. When the larva are old enough, the female deposits them on a hard surface where the larva soon grow into polyps. The polyps begin to reproduce asexually, creating stacks of small creatures called ephyraes. The individual ephyraes break off the stacks, where they eventually grow into the medusa stage and become full grown jellyfish.
Read more about this topic: Lion's Mane Jellyfish
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