Scientific research: do jellyfish live forever?

Mankind has long been in search of an elixir of immortality. The latest scientific evidence suggests that there is a creature on our beautiful planet that can live forever. This, it would seem, has long been researched and known jellyfish, or rather, a small creature called nutricula. Want to learn how to find a jellyfish that lives forever?

Inconspicuous creatures

Medusa nutricles are known in the scientific world for a long time. For the first time the description of this creature appeared in the nineteenth century. The reproduction and life cycle of nutricula is quite ordinary. Like all jellyfish, the fertilization of eggs with spermatozoa occurs on the surface of the sea, then the eggs become a larva. Then there is a descent of the planula to the bottom and the formation of a polyp, from which a tiny jellyfish separates, which lives forever. A photo of these creatures is presented below.

The appearance of the jellyfish Turritopsis nutricula is not noticeable, but rather, it can be said that this miniature creature. She has an umbrella with a diameter of less than 5 mm, which is surrounded by thin tentacles. The newly born jellyfish have only 8, whereas the adult individual has up to 100 pieces. It also has a cruciform red spot, formed in the middle of the umbrella by the digestive organs of the jellyfish. Newborn nutricles with a size of only 1 mm.

An Amazing Find

The end of the last century was marked by an amazing discovery. It turns out that jellyfish live forever. Opening made the Italian Fernando Boero. Deciding to clean the forgotten in his time the aquarium, the scientist discovered strange polyps. These unusual outgrowths were like jellyfish, which previously lived in an aquarium, but only without tentacles. The scientist decided to continue the experiment, although the remaining creatures in the aquarium died. Filling it with sea water, Boero began to observe the polyps. After a while, they began to develop, and as a result, tiny jellyfish jellyfish appeared.

It happened, it would seem, impossible - nutricles turned the cycle of their own development. Up to this time it was known that all jellyfish have a final stage of development - the breeding phase. In most coelenterates, and not only in them, the appearance of fertilized cells or eggs leads to the death of adult individuals. And already from them appears young growth, in jellyfish larvae turn into polyps, and already from them small jellyfish are born. The discovery of Bauer turned all knowledge about jellyfish back. So, scientists have found a jellyfish, which lives forever.

Life cycle

Representatives of this species, like other types of hydroids, undergo two stages of development. The first begins with the development of larvae after fertilization of the oocytes. Then the larvae that have entered the free space settle on the ocean floor, where they turn into polyps. Thus, whole jellyfish colonies appear, resembling a spindle or mace in appearance. At this stage of development, polyps form a peculiar skeleton, at the end of which there are tentacles with stinging cells peculiar to jellyfish . So, the whole colony is able to eat small creatures.

The second stage begins with the separation of young jellyfish from polyps. Thus, small jellyfish begin to lead a familiar way of life for us. Within a few months they reach sexual maturity, and the whole process is repeated anew. How does it happen that jellyfish live forever? It is interesting that jellyfish have additional ways of preserving the species.

Features of jellyfish

Preservation of life is associated with the abilities of hydroids to recovery processes. It has long been known that jellyfish can restore lost body parts in a short period of time. It has been experimentally proved that a jellyfish cut into parts is capable of reproducing itself. This process of reconstruction is called transdifferentiation. In fact, one cell can develop another, which means that theoretically all jellyfish live forever. However, many other creatures have these abilities. Lizards can safely grow a new tail, and scientists are now able to grow stem cells from individual organs.

But the ability of the jellyfish nutrikuly to restore all of his body is truly unique. She is able to repeat the process an infinite number of times and at the same time remain forever young. It was these processes that gave scientists the idea to believe that jellyfish live forever.

Today, scientists are closely monitoring this type of jellyfish to learn more about the process of rejuvenation. On our amazing planet there are many unknown to man beings who have not yet revealed their secrets.