Lamarck's Blue Jellyfishes off Insular and Mainland Northern Europe

Summary: Lamarck's blue jellyfishes add blue, brown, gray, purple, white, yellow bodies to Celtic, Irish, North and Scandinavian Sea waters off northern Europe.

blue jellyfish (Cyanea lamarckii) at North Sea coast near Vejers, western coastal Jutland Peninsula, southwestern Denmark; June 9, 2002: via Wikimedia Commons

Easterly summer winds over Celtic, Irish, North and Scandinavian Seas off coastal France, Iceland, Ireland and Northern Ireland; Cornwall, England, Scotland and Wales; Belgium and Netherlands; and Norway attract Lamarck's blue jellyfishes.

Blue or bluefire jellyfishes bear their common name because of blue tentacles and blue or blue-etched hoods to swimming bells (bodies) and lips to central mouths. They carry the same-meaninged scientific name Cyanea lamarckii ("Lamarck's blue-colored [jellyfish]") to commemorate Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck (Aug. 1, 1744-Dec. 18, 1829). Their taxonomy derives from scientific descriptions in 1810 by François Auguste Péron (Aug. 22, 1775-Dec. 14, 1810) and Charles Alexandre Lesueur (Jan. 1, 1778-Dec. 12, 1846).

The Lesueur and Péron explications entailed examining a pale-rimmed, white-armed specimen with a 4.72- to 5.91-inch (12- to 15-centimeter) diameter bell from coastal Le Havre, France.

The Cyanidae (from the Greek κυάνεος, kuáneos, "blue-colored") true jellyfish family member fits May through October into one-year life cycles as feeding months for free-swimming stages.

Lamarck's blue jellyfishes go from fertilized egg stages within parental bodies to pelagic (free-swimming, open-ocean) larval, benthic (sea-bottom) polyp and free-swimming ephyrae (sea-nereids) and medusan stages. Fingernail-sized, free-swimming, hatched, whitish larvae head out from parental bodies into rough wintry waters for plankton and then for sea-bottom rocks to house their polyp successors. Polyps (from the Greek πολύς, polús, "many," and πούς, poús, "foot") increase Lamarck's blue jellyfish populations through asexual reproduction and coral reefs through their stone-anchored corpses.

Lamarck's blue jellyfishes journey from stalked polyp stages to free-swimming, open-ocean stages between January and March as miniature adult-like ephyrae with thick-jellied bells and thin-jellied margins.

Lamarck's blue jellyfishes keep 3.94- to 11.81-inch (10- to 30-centimeter) diameter bells saucer-shaped and thick-jellied, with eight thin-jellied margins for one 40- to 60-tentacle bundle each.

Lamarck's blue jellyfishes lodge neurotoxin-laced nematocysts (from the Greek νῆμα, nēma, "thread," and κύστις, kústis, "anatomical sac") on blue-, brown-, gray-, purple-, translucent-, yellow-hooded bell upper-sides. Lobes and undersides respectively maintain one chemical-, gravity-, light-sensitive sensory organ and up to 3.28-foot (1-meter-) long, nematocyst-riddled tentacles each; and four diameter-sized, frilly, thick arms. The folded, rippled, wrinkled arms nestle around the manubrium (from the Latin manūbrium, "handle"), food-impelling and waste-expelling, tubular, white- to yellow-lipped central mouth and simple stomach.

Water temperatures between 55 and 65 degrees Fahrenheit (13 and 18 degrees Celsius) optimize Lamarck's blue jellyfishes obtaining comb jelly, moon jelly, shrimp and zooplankton prey.

Lamarck's blue jellyfishes protect symbiotic (mutually benefiting) traveling companions and themselves against predatory fishes, sea turtles and seabirds through stinging nettle-like neurotoxins on bells and tentacles.

The 1810-published taxonomy queues up quintessential Lamarck's blue jellyfishes: "ombrelle aplati, à seize échancrures, dont huit superficielles" ("flattened umbrella, with 16 notches, of which eight superficial"). It reveals "huit faisceaux de tentacules; huit auricules marginales; huit gros troncs de faiscaux aérifères" ("eight tentacle bundles; eight marginal auricles; eight large air bundle trunks"). It settles upon "des vésicules aériennes au centre de l'ombrelle; un orbicule intérieur à seize pointes et du plus beau bleu d'outre-mer; rebord pâle; tentacules bleus."

White-armed Lamarck's blue jellyfishes treat north European coasts to "aerial vesicles at the umbrella center; a most beautiful sea-blue, 16-pointed inner orbicule; pale rim; blue tentacles."

Cyanea lamarckii, seven weeks old (x 4), by Irish self-taught marine biologist Maude Jane Delap (Dec. 7, 1866-July 23, 1953), the first person to breed jellyfish in captivity; M.J. Delap's Notes on the Rearing In an Aquarium of Cyanea Lamarcki (1905), Plate I, figure 3 (opposite page 22): Public Domain via HathiTrust

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

blue jellyfish (Cyanea lamarckii) at North Sea coast near Vejers, western coastal Jutland Peninsula, southwestern Denmark; June 9, 2002: via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bl%C3%A5_brandmand_(Cyanea_lamarckii).jpg

Cyanea lamarckii, seven weeks old (x 4), by Irish self-taught marine biologist Maude Jane Delap (Dec. 7, 1866-July 23, 1953), the first person to breed jellyfish in captivity; M.J. Delap's Notes on the Rearing, in an Aquarium, of Cyanea Lamarcki (1904), Plate I, figure 3 (opposite page 22): Public Domain via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiug.30112112120792?urlappend=%3Bseq=601

For further information:

Delap, M.J. (Maude Jane). 1904. "Notes on the Rearing, in an Aquarium, of Cyanea Lamarcki, Peron et Lesueur." Report on the Sea and Inland Fisheries of Ireland for 1902 and 1903. In Two Parts. Part II-Scientific Investigations, Appendix, ii: 20-22. Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland. Dublin, Ireland: Printed for His Majesty's Stationery Office by Alexander Thom & Co.
Available via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiug.30112112120792?urlappend=%3Bseq=598

Marriner, Derdriu. 22 August 2015. "Ghost Jellyfishes off Stressed Northern Pacific Coastal China and Japan." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2015/08/ghost-jellyfishes-off-stressed-northern.html

Péron, [François]; and [Charles Alexandre] Lesueur. 1810. "Nº 104. Cyanée Lamarck. Cyanea Lamarcki. (Plate LXXXVII, fig. 218, XCIII, fig. 229." Tableau des caractères génériques et spécifiques de toutes les espèces de méduses connues jusqu'à ce jour. Annales du Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle de Paris, tome quatorzième: 363. Paris, France: G. Dufour.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/3499019
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/annalesdumusum14mus#page/363/mode/1up

Purcell, Jennifer E. "Scyphozoa (Jellyfish)." In: Michael Hutchins, Dennis A. Thoney and Neil Schlager, eds. Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia. Second Edition. Volume 1, Lower Metazoans and Lesser Deuterostomes: 153- 157. Farmington Hills MI: Gale Group, 2003.