Last week we looked at the design and habits of jellyfish found in oceans all over the world. Here are a few of them.
The largest of all is the Cyanea Arctica, which measures eight feet across its body and is armed with tentacles two hundred feet long. These live in cold northern waters and are rarely seen.
Perhaps one of the most feared is the Portuguese man-of-war. It has twenty or more tentacles reaching down about two hundred feet. It has a bright-blue body and a gas-filled sail reaching above the surface for a means of travel with the wind. Its tentacles have enough poison to kill two dozen fish at a time and can prove fatal to a swimmer.
But there is another jellyfish more to be feared than the man-of-war. It is the sea wasp, one of the class called box jellyfish, which is found off the north coast of Australia. It is considered one of the world’s most venomous creatures. It has a transparent, box-shaped, jet-propelled body and tentacles that also go deep into the ocean. It is perhaps the most deadly of all jellyfish, having an abundance of poison. This jellyfish actually kills more people each year than do sharks.
Another sky-blue variety is called “by-the-wind-sailor.” Like a miniature Portuguese man-of-war, it drifts with the wind and is sometimes stranded in great numbers on seashores. Its body is only two or three inches wide with short tentacles, which limit its catch to tiny fish or other small sea life.
The porpita jellyfish is medium sized, with a dark-blue body and light-blue, short tentacles that form a feathery-looking circle under its flat body. It also feeds only on tiny forms of marine life.
The physalla lives in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. It is a beautiful blue, or sometimes pink, with tentacles from forty to a hundred feet long and, like some of the others, can kill a man. Strangely though, a small fish named nemeus makes its home among the physalla’s deadly tentacles and even nibbles on them from time to time, with no harm from the poison.
Most jellyfish are quite pretty, and a person not knowing the danger of some of these creatures might be tempted to pick one out of the water, but would soon regret it. This reminds us of Satan, the great deceiver, who likes to put attractive but hurtful temptations into our lives. How important to notice David’s prayer: “By the word of Thy lips I have ... [been kept] from the paths of the destroyer. Hold up my goings in Thy paths, that my footsteps slip not” (Psalm 17:4-54Concerning the works of men, by the word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer. 5Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not. (Psalm 17:4‑5)). Happiness is found only when we rely on the Lord God to preserve us from Satan’s evil ways.
ML-09/08/2013