Items18The creator’s order
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Aurelia auritaThe moon jelly is one of the jellies most often found washed up on the sand: a clear, dinner-plate-sized disc with four clover-shaped gonads showing through the bell like petals. Its tentacles are only a short fringe, and its sting is very mild or goes unnoticed, so it is a good animal to learn…0 - 2
Portuguese man o' warThe Portuguese man o' war looks like a jellyfish but is a siphonophore: a colony of specialized, genetically identical individuals working as one animal. The blue, violet or pink balloon on top rides up to six inches above the waterline, while the tentacles below average about 30 feet.
The sting…0 - 3
Chironex fleckeriThe Australian box jellyfish is the most feared animal on this list, and the reason northern Australian beaches post stinger warnings. Its pale, boxy bell reaches about 30 cm and trails up to 60 tentacles in four clumps, each up to 3 m long, and it is found most often in summer in inshore…0 - 4
Carukia barnesiIrukandji jellyfish show why size says nothing about danger. Carukia barnesi, the species best known for it, is a tiny box jellyfish with a transparent bell only 1.5 to 2.5 cm across, and its sting causes only minor skin irritation at first.
The trouble comes later. Some 5 to 40 minutes after the…0 - 5
Lion's mane jellyfishThe lion's mane is the giant of cold northern seas, with a reddish or yellowish-brown bell and eight clusters of tentacles, each cluster holding 70 to 150 or more. It is usually 30 to 50 cm across in British waters, but the largest have been reported at around 2 m, which makes it a contender for…0 - 6
Chrysaora fuscescensThe Pacific sea nettle is the yellowish to reddish-brown jelly with long, frilly mouth-arms, found in coastal waters from Alaska to California and across to Japan and the Bering Sea. Its bell can reach about 45 cm, and the ruffled mouth-arms trail 12 to 15 feet below it.
Not every jelly stings,…0 - 7
Chrysaora chesapeakeiThe bay nettle is the summer jelly of the Chesapeake Bay, where it is the most common species and can be around from May to October. Until recently it was filed under the Atlantic sea nettle, Chrysaora quinquecirrha, so older guides use that name.
An adult has a bell up to 8 inches across with 24…0 - 8
VelellaBy-the-wind sailors are the teacup-sized blue ovals that sometimes carpet West Coast beaches by the thousands. Each one is a floating colony of specialized polyps rather than a single jellyfish, and it travels by a stiff, clear sail standing about an inch above the water, so the wind decides where…0 - 9
Porpita porpitaThe blue button looks like a small, bright blue jellyfish fringed with tentacles, but it is a colony of many small hydroid animals rather than a true jelly. It drifts at the surface and now and then washes up in numbers, as it did on Texas beaches such as Galveston Island in the summer of 2023.
It…0 - 10
Cannonball jellyfishThe cannonball jelly is a firm, round dome somewhere between a softball and a volleyball in size, usually white with a reddish-brown lower edge. It has no tentacles around the outside of the bell, which gives it its smooth, ball-like look as it pulses along.
Its sting is mild if felt at all, so…0