---
title: "What the sources say about the Moon Jellyfish | AnimalTracks.wiki"
description: "40 claims from the Moon Jellyfish profile, each beside the words of the source that backs it."
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# What the sources say about the Moon Jellyfish (*Aurelia aurita*)

> 40 claims from the Moon Jellyfish profile, each beside the words of the source that backs it. A "..." marks a cut in a quote and [brackets] an insertion.

Profile: [Moon Jellyfish](https://animaltracks.wiki/animals/moon-jellyfish/)

## Aurelia aurita (moon jellyfish). Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan.

https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Aurelia_aurita/

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| Coastal and brackish waters of three of the four main oceans, all but the Arctic | range includes 3 of the 4 oceans (all but the Arctic) and other saltwater locales (note: stats.habitat; coastal and brackish from the Habitat section: 'oceanic coastal waters' and Aquatic Biomes 'coastal brackish water') |
| Plankton, copepods, mollusks, fish eggs and smaller jellyfish | These include plankton, copepods, mollusks, fish eggs and smaller jellyfish. (note: stats.diet) |
| Not Evaluated | They have not been evaluated by the IUCN Red List. (note: stats.conservationStatus. GBIF's Red List copy holds no category for Aurelia aurita and the prefetch found no assessment DOI, so no IUCN reference is cited.) |
| The IUCN Red List has not evaluated the species. | They have not been evaluated by the IUCN Red List. (note: Same as stats line.) |
| The bell is see-through and 10 to 35 cm across | They have transparent outer bells that range in diameter from 10 to 35 cm. |
| Short tentacles, 1 to 5 cm long, fringe the edge. | Small tentacles, 1 to 5 cm long, radiate from the bells of moon jellies, out to their sides. |
| Four oral arms hang below it, and they carry stinging cells called nematocysts. | Radiating from below the bell of moon jellies are four oral arms which contain stinging cells, or nematocysts |
| Inside the bell sits a second dome with blue veins running through it, shaped like horseshoe rings: those are its gonads, the reproductive organs. | Within the outer bell is another dome which has blue veins running through it; these veins are their gonads, which resemble horseshoe rings. |
| Moon jellies are carnivores known to eat most creatures small enough to get tangled on the bell or tentacles | As carnivorous organisms, moon jellies are known to feed on most organisms small enough to become entangled on their bells or in their tentacles. |
| plankton, copepods (tiny shrimp-like crustaceans), mollusks, fish eggs and smaller jellyfish. | feed on most organisms small enough to become entangled on their bells or in their tentacles. These include plankton, copepods, mollusks, fish eggs and smaller jellyfish. |
| The oral arms then move the catch toward the stomach under the bell. | moon jellies uses their oral arms to move their prey towards their stomachs, located under the their bells |
| It does sting people. Animal Diversity Web lists stings to swimmers among the ways it affects tourism. | Moon jellies also affect tourism by stinging humans that are swimming. |
| Fertilized eggs become larvae called planulae, which spend 10 days on average swimming with tiny hairs called cilia before they attach to a hard surface and turn into polyps. | Fertilized eggs, called planulae, spend 10 days on average swimming around using small cilia before finding and attaching themselves to hard surfaces, becoming polyps. |
| A polyp stays fixed in place and buds off a number of disc-shaped segments. | Moon jellies begin their lives as free floating planulae, which then morph into polyps – small sedentary organisms. Moon jelly polyps go through budding and create a number of disk-shaped segments. |
| Each disc breaks free as a floating ephyra, which grows into a young medusa. | These disk segments detach and enter a free-floating stage, where they are called ephyrae. These ephyrae then develop into immature, mobile medusae |
| Under suitable conditions the climb from ephyra to mature adult takes 4 to 6 months | Under suitable conditions, this process takes 4 to 6 months. |
| sexual maturity arrives somewhere between 4 and 12 months | Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female) 4 to 12 months |
| Moon jellyfish live in coastal waters of three of the four main oceans, all but the Arctic, and they can handle brackish water | range includes 3 of the 4 oceans (all but the Arctic) (note: brackish: Aquatic Biomes list 'coastal' and 'brackish water'; 'These jellies can live in waters with a salt content as low as 0.6%.') |
| Its bell spans 10 to 35 centimeters (about 4 to 14 inches) | Range length 10 to 35 cm 3.94 to 13.78 in (note: inches are a unit conversion of 10 to 35 cm (3.9 to 13.8).) |
| the small tentacles around the rim reach just 1 to 5 centimeters. | Small tentacles, 1 to 5 cm long |

## Gemmell et al. (2013). Passive energy recapture in jellyfish contributes to propulsive advantage over other metazoans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1306983110

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| ranks among the most energy-efficient swimmers on the planet | one of the most energetically efficient propulsors on the planet |
| Recycles energy from its own swimming stroke to travel 30% further with every pulse | passive energy recapture, which is exploited to allow them to travel 30% further each swimming cycle (note: stats.superpower) |
| A vortex ring of spinning water underneath it creates positive pressure, extra thrust the jellyfish gets passively. | passive energy recapture ... this extra thrust results from positive pressure created by a vortex ring underneath the bell during the refilling phase of swimming |
| it travels 30% further each swimming cycle, which cuts the energy its swimming muscles need | travel 30% further each swimming cycle, thereby reducing metabolic energy demand by swimming muscles |
| the moon jellyfish has a cost of transport lower than other animals', which the researchers say makes it one of the most energetically efficient swimmers on the planet | the jellyfish (Aurelia aurita) is one of the most energetically efficient propulsors on the planet, exhibiting a cost of transport (joules per kilogram per meter) lower than other metazoans |
| When the bell refills, the ring of spinning water beneath it pushes with positive pressure, and that extra thrust carries the jellyfish 30% further per swimming cycle. | travel 30% further each swimming cycle ... positive pressure created by a vortex ring underneath the bell during the refilling phase of swimming |
| The researchers estimated that this passive energy recapture improves its cost of transport by 48%. | We estimate that reduced metabolic demand by passive energy recapture improves the cost of transport by 48% |
| a vortex ring of spinning water beneath it adds thrust passively | passive energy recapture ... this extra thrust results from positive pressure created by a vortex ring underneath the bell during the refilling phase of swimming (note: vibe.reason) |
| it travels 30% further each swimming cycle | travel 30% further each swimming cycle, thereby reducing metabolic energy demand by swimming muscles (note: vibe.reason) |

## Dabiri et al. (2005). Flow patterns generated by oblate medusan jellyfish: field measurements and laboratory analyses. Journal of Experimental Biology.

https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.01519

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| A moon jellyfish swims in cycles: a power stroke, then a recovery stroke. | The flow created during each propulsive cycle consists of a toroidal starting vortex formed during the power swimming stroke, followed by a stopping vortex of opposite rotational sense generated during the recovery stroke. |
| Dye tests on wild jellies showed a second payoff. | we employed dye visualization techniques on scyphomedusae (Aurelia aurita) observed swimming in their natural marine habitat |
| The swirls from each cycle merge and send water both toward the feeding surfaces under the bell and downstream. | These two vortices merge in a laterally oriented vortex superstructure that induces flow both toward the subumbrellar feeding surfaces and downstream. |

## Lee et al. (2011). Scyphozoan jellyfish venom metalloproteinases and their role in the cytotoxicity. Toxicon.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.toxicon.2011.06.007

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| In a lab comparison of four jellyfish venoms, moon jellyfish venom damaged cultured cells less than two of its relatives' venoms did and more than the third. | The relative cytotoxic potency was C. nozakii > N. nomurai > A. aurita > R. esculenta. |
| In a study of four jellyfish venoms on cultured cells, moon jellyfish venom was less damaging than that of Cyanea nozakii and Nemopilema nomurai, and more damaging than that of Rhopilema esculenta. | comparatively investigated the enzymatic activities (proteases and hyaluronidases) in the venoms of four Scyphozoan jellyfish species ... The relative cytotoxic potency was C. nozakii > N. nomurai > A. aurita > R. esculenta. (note: less and more damaging restate the cytotoxic potency ranking; cultured cells are the NIH 3T3 cells.) |

## Lawley et al. (2021). The importance of molecular characters when morphological variability hinders diagnosability: systematics of the moon jellyfish genus Aurelia (Cnidaria: Scyphozoa). PeerJ.

https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.11954

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| Not long ago scientists recognized just two moon jelly species, and one of them, Aurelia aurita, was treated as one coastal jelly found worldwide. | More recently, only two species were recognized, Aurelia limbata Brandt, 1835 , which has a brown bell margin and is primarily from temperate regions, and a cosmopolitan nearshore inhabitant A. aurita (note: 'one' restates that A. aurita was one of the two species recognized.) |
| A 2021 study, working mostly from genetic data, recognized 28 species in the genus | mostly based on genetic data, we recognize 28 species of Aurelia (note: 2021 is the year of the lawley-2021 reference.) |
| showed that their body features overlap between jellies from very distant coasts | morphological variability in Aurelia medusae overlaps across very distant geographic localities |
| No. A 2021 study, working mostly from genetic data, recognized 28 species in the moon jellyfish genus Aurelia, 10 of them newly described in that paper. | mostly based on genetic data, we recognize 28 species of Aurelia , of which seven were already described, 10 are formally described herein (note: 2021 is the year of the lawley-2021 reference.) |
| Every other source on this page was published before that split, under the old, broad name | a cosmopolitan nearshore inhabitant A. aurita , which included as synonyms most of the previously proposed names (note: Scope statement. The other references are Dabiri 2005, Lee 2011, Gemmell 2013 and the ADW account (tombs 2020, 'Last updated: 2020-09-13'), all before Lawley 2021 and all naming Aurelia aurita in the broad sense.) |

## Moon jellyfish. Kent Wildlife Trust.

https://www.kentwildlifetrust.org.uk/wildlife-explorer/marine/jellyfish/moon-jellyfish

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| In British seas the adult is unlikely to live past 6 months in the wild, and a little over a year in captivity. | Unlikely to live past 6 months in the wild; Little over 1 year in captivity. |