Ctenophres - Comb jellies - Sandy Hook Marinelife - Dave Grant

Ctenophores or Comb Jellies
Dave Grant - Sandy Hook, NJ

Ctenophores or Comb Jellies are not true jellyfishes because they lack stinging cells (Nematocysts).
They are some of the most beautiful and abundant creatures in the sea. Some can ensnare small fishes, but most eat plankton or even smaller comb jellies.

True jellyfishes move by pumping their "bell" and comb jellies are not as flexible or active.	Comb jellies move and feed using rows ("combs") of cilia, or ctenes.

Mawsonites spriggi (Australia)	Fossils of soft-bodied creatures like jellies are rare, but some Precambrian specimens are known from silt deposits in Australia, England and Newfoundland. This specimen is from the Eriacara Hills of Australia (570-670 million years old). The Eriacaran period is sometimes called the "Age of Jellyfishes" because of the great number of soft-bodied fossils found in those layers. Fossil courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC

	These simple organisms have body parts that can function independently. Fragments of comb jellies that are broken up in the plankton nets continue to move for hours.