Everything But The Shark Week: Jellyfish, Immortal and Astounding
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Your feelings about jellyfish might be classified as “it’s complicated.”
If you have been stung by one, you might call jellyfish frightening and even painful. If you have watched them gliding through the water, in person or films like Finding Nemo, you might label them tranquil and meditative. If you truly know jellyfish, you’d most certainly call them what they are: amazing, astonishing, and (sometimes!) immortal.
Flop aside Shark Week lovers, grab your flippers while we “dive deeper,” and explore these cool jellyfish facts found in the pages of books in Falvey’s collection!
Did you know Jellyfish…
…have no heart, brain, bones, or eyes, and their bodies are mostly water?
…travel and migrate in groups called a smack?
…have bodies, called bells, that are shaped like open umbrellas?
…either swim by floating with the current or squeezing water through their bodies?
…can sometimes revert from the adult (medusa) stage to the polyp stage and back again, effectively becoming immortal?
Reading Recommendations for Jelly-fans…
The above facts were drawn from several books available in the Library’s collection:
Anthony D. Fredericks. How Long Things Live : And How They Live As Long As They Do. Vol. 1st ed, Stackpole Books, 2010.Herriges, Ann. Jellyfish. Bellwether Media, Inc, 2007.
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Bonus podcasts with even more jelly-facts!
Want to read some great jelly-fiction and jelly-poetry?
Shawn Proctor, MFA, is Communications and Marketing Program Manager at Falvey Memorial Library. He was stung by a jellyfish as a child and, naturally, is writing a horror novel about jellyfish now.
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I’m not even going to tell you about the (bad) advice I was given to treat a jellyfish sting. If you do get stung, rinse the stung area with vinegar and then apply heat. Need more info? See https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/how-fix-jellyfish-sting-180963582/. (I can’t wait to read your novel, Shawn!)