The purpose of this Jellyfish Webquest! is to inform students about jellyfish problems, both in Australia and on a global level, and encourage students to take action to raise jellyfish awareness.

Introduction

It was not until recently that jellyfish have caught the attention of modern science. With the exception of the last five years, relatively little was known about the jellyfish. Even with the contributions of contemporary jellyfish research, jellyfish are still largely a mystery to us. 


Jellyfish have been on earth for millions of years - They are some of the oldest living creatures on earth and have existed on earth since before the dinosaurs. Jellyfish are brain-less, free-swimming members of the phylum Cnidaria, known mainly for their stinging tentacles. However, most people are unaware that despite being brain-less, jellyfish are quite intelligent creatures - A "nerve net" located in the epidermis of jellyfish functions much like a brain (allowing memory processing, storage, and retrieval), and some jellyfish even have eyes (in some cases, 24 eyes!). Today, jellyfish inhabit every sea in the world, as well as several freshwater bodies of water (MacNevin, 2008).

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