When you're feeling jelly
This marine creature has eyes everywhere.
Howdy! It’s Joey, back with more Fun Fact Friyay. This fact has a particular eye for details.
Box jellyfish have 24 eyes.
The other day, I was in the midst of my bedtime routine, which includes brushing my teeth. Gotta have the ol’ chompers feeling fresh
As I squeezed a bit of toothpaste out onto my brush, some of those toothpaste particles somehow flung themselves through the air and got into my eye.
For the next minute or so, I had a weird minty stinging sensation going on.
That was in one eye and it was still bothersome. Imagine it in 24 eyes.
Well, that’s the MO of box jellies. Each one has sensory structures known as rhopalia, which are connected to their ring nerve. The eyes sit in groups of clusters on these rhopalia.
Box jellyfish have four rhopalia, and each one has six eyes. A lil’ quick math and that’s 24 eyes in total.
As you might expect, these eyes give box jellies some advanced vision. Two of the eyes can see color, and with the multiple information processing areas in the rhopalia, box jellyfish are one of the rare animals that can see the world in 360 degrees.
Just two years ago, scientists discovered a new type of box jellyfish in Hong Kong, the first-ever to be found swimming in Chinese waters.
Alas, all those eyes are sometimes used for attacking, too. Box jellies hang out in deeper water during the winter but occasionally chill at the surface in the summer.
That means you could be at the beach, just trying to enjoy some sun and water, and then get stung by a jellyfish. It happened to me as a kid and I’m still mildly cautious around the ocean because of it. What a Tentacruel situation.
Some box jellies have so much venom in their stingers that a single sting can be fatal, much like a performance of “Roxanne” for someone who hates The Police. I don’t think I encountered one of those jellyfish varieties.
Or maybe I did, and it only made me stronger than ever. Yeah, let’s go with that.
Oh hi, let’s take a quick commercial break with Booking.com!
I’m heading to Portugal in a few weeks—don’t worry Fun Fact Friyay will still be running smoothly—and despite being in multiple cities, I’m resting easy with Booking.com.
Not only am I able to get discounts on hundreds of hotels, I’m also earning rewards to enhance my experience or get free nights. And I can get discounts on things around town, like tours, restaurants, dance lessons, silent raves, and all kinds of activities that make travel so special.
If you’ve got any travel coming up, definitely give Booking.com a peek. And if you see me at the airport, I’ll make a fun travel-related pun about your destination so you can tell your seatmate you met a wackadoo while you were waiting for your flight.
Tentacruel situation indeed! My tired eyes hurt thinking about this, thanks!