Nomura's Jellyfish: Nomura's Jellyfish a Big, Deadly Creature

Nomura's jellyfish is huge. Nomura's jellyfish is deadly. Nomura's jellyfish is a large Japanese jellyfish that is found in the central Yellow Sea and East China Sea.

The Mainichi Daily News reports that a small fishing boat capsized because a large Nomura's jellyfish was tangled up in its net. The name of the fishing boat is the Daisan Shinsho-maru.

How could the Normura's Jellyfish capsize a small fishing vessel? Easy! Each Nomura's jellyfish can easily weigh up to 200 kg (450 pounds) and is up to 2 meters (6 feet 7 inches) in diameter.

The Daisan Shinsho-maru capsized off Inubozaki Lighthouse in Choshi around 9 a.m. local time. Three men - Takashi Otsuka, Yoshimatsu Nakauchi, and Noboru Suzuki were thrown into the sea, but later rescued by the Choshi Coast Guard. Lucky for them the sea was calm at the time of the incident.

Jellyfish can be deadly. The three men could have easily been killed when the giant Nomura's jellyfish capsized their small fishing vessel. In addition, there has been a spike in the jellyfish population.

According to Wikipedia, when jellyfish are under attack or killed, they release billions of sperm or eggs into the water. These reproductive cells attach to rocks or coral. When conditions are right, the cells detach and millions at a time grow in to more jellyfish.

Japan has been trying to fight the growing jellyfish population in a very creative way. They promote jellyfish as a novelty food. They sell jellyfish salted and dried. Some students have been able to turn jellyfish into tofu and cookies and the collagen in jellyfish is said to be beneficial for the skin.

It's hard to combat a growing jellyfish population. Part of the problem is how the creatures act when attacked. If they kill jellyfish, it just leads to more jellyfish being created through the released sperm and egg cells.

The growing jellyfish population is troublesome for Japan. The large Namura's jellyfish choke fishing nets, poisoning fish with toxic stingers, and potentially killing individuals with their toxic stings.

I'll pass on the jellyfish chips and the jellyfish face cream. I'm not much in to sea food anyways. I'll just keep my fingers crossed and hope that Japan figures out a way to keep Namura's jellyfish from capsizing their fishing vessels.

Sources:

Mainichi Daily News: http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20091031p2a00m0na006000c.html

Wikipedia.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomura's_jellyfish

National Geographic: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/01/0119_060119_jellyfish.html