![]() ![]() These polyps can persist for decades until the ecosystem has enough food and the right water temperature for their survival. When a sperm and an egg meet, they produce a larva, which typically sinks to the bottom of the ocean and attaches to a hard surface, where it becomes a polyp. One of the ways jellyfish reproduce is by releasing large amounts of sperm and eggs into the water. Scientists don’t know for sure how the jellies have been able to cover such vast distances, but they suspect some of them may have hitched a ride on ships during their early-life polyp stage. A few have also been spotted farther north, near Galveston. This is not the first time the invaders have been sighted off the coast of Texas, according to the U.S. They made their way to the Hawaiian Islands by at least 1945 and populated the Gulf of Mexico by 2000. Their mild venom is “so weak they can’t use it to stun prey,” per the Padre Island National Seashore.įirst described in 1884, Australian spotted jellyfish live off the coasts of Australia, Japan, Thailand and the Philippines in the Pacific and Indian oceans. Traveling in huge swarms, each of these creatures can eat all the plankton within 65 cubic yards of water in a single day, according to the Texas Invasive Species Institute.įortunately for beachgoers, Australian spotted jellyfish are largely harmless to humans. That’s because Australian spotted jellyfish-also known as white-spotted or brown jellyfish-can decimate zooplankton populations, setting off ripple effects up the food chain. ![]() While the creature is certainly eye-catching, officials pointed out that it’s a “not-so-welcome visitor” to the national seashore. They shared a photo of a gelatinous, semi-translucent blob with white polka dots splayed out on the sand of North Beach, a stretch of shoreline along the Gulf of Mexico. ![]() Wildlife officials at Padre Island National Seashore discovered an Australian spotted jellyfish ( Phyllorhiza punctata) on the sand late last month, they revealed Friday in a Facebook post. An invasive jellyfish native to the western Pacific Ocean has washed up a long way from home-on a Texas beach. ![]()
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