The Box JellyFish
Fast and Deadly
Classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Cnidaria
Class: Cubozoa
Order: Chirodropida
Family: Chirodropidae
Genus species: Chironex Fleckeri
Where do they live?
Box Jellyfish live mostly on the northern shores of Australia and throughought the Indo pacific.
What do they eat?
The Box jellyfish's diet consists of small fish, sergestid prawns, shrimp, and even other species of jellyfish.
How do they move?
Box Jellyfish are very advanced in how they move. They have developed the ability to move instead of just drifting, jetting at up to four knots through the water.
How they eat
They have very toxic venom that they use to stun or kill their prey. The venom affects the nervous system, heart and skin cells. The jellyfish then brings the killed food to its cilia to be digested with its long tentacles. The Box Jelly fish have no digestive tract so they use silia to digest their food.
Size
The average box jellyfish is about 10 feet long and about 10 inches wide. They can weigh up to 4.4 pounds.
Interesting Facts
- The Box Jellyfish is the most deadly jellyfish to humans and kill on average 3 people a year.
- They are one of the fastest swimming jellyfish in the world.
- They have small clusters of eyes on their anterior surface.
How they live
Around early spring the box jellyfish release their eggs and sperm into the water and shortly after die. After the sperm and eggs come together they will latch onto a hard surface and reproduce asexually by budding. The box jellyfish live solitarily, and they only see other box jelly fish when they mate.
Evolutionary Relationships
They are most closely related to other venomous jellyfish like the Irukandji.
Behavior against predators
The box jellyfish has no predators because of its deadly sting, and animals have learned to steer clear of it.