Can you believe there are jellyfish in Otsego Lake?  

Aren't jellyfish only found in salt water? Guess not. There's some in Cooperstown. The video above was posted by Nathan Schoellig and Alex Krstevski this August. Check out the 1:45 mark . It's amazing.

An article from the Freemans Journal in 2014 also reported a family, fishing in James Fenimore Cooper’s Glimmerglass, spotted lots of jellyfish.

Alex Krstevski/YouTube
Alex Krstevski/YouTube
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It turns out they're called Craspedacusta sowerby, a fresh-water bell-shaped jellyfish. They're very delicate and have many tentacles when fully grown. Most of the body is transparent or translucent, with a whitish or greenish tinge.

Wikipedia reports prey is caught with their stinging tentacles. The jelly waits for suitable prey to touch a tentacle and when it does it injects poison which paralyzes the animal, and the tentacle itself coils around the prey. However, these cnidocytes cells are used for paralyzing very tiny prey and have not been proven to have the capacity to pierce human skin.

nas.er.usgs.gov
nas.er.usgs.gov
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Craspedacusta sowerbyi is native to the Yangtze basin in China. It's an invasive species now found are now found all over the world with the exception of Antarctica.

Have you ever noticed Craspedacusta sowerbyi in CNY?

 


 

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