Image: Artist rendering by Christian-McCall of ‘Burgessomedusa phasmiformis’.
Jellyfish have survived over 500 million years, despite not having a brain.
This gives so many people hope.
It also speaks to other characteristics we humans might not have considered important to the survival of a species.
Recently, some fossil hunters in Canada discovered evidence of an ancient jellyfish a location known as the Burgess Shale; a site were, apparently, you can’t even sneeze without discovering a new fossil.
They chiseled out the previously unknown jellyfish — probably, a mother jellyfish and her playful young child — and gave them a typically impossible-to-pronounce name, Burgessomedusa phasmiformis.
A number of news sources have announced this fossil discovery, including the Smithsonian, and CNN. Everyone is claiming that this jellyfish lived (and apparently died) over 500 million years ago.
CNN included a photo, showing the fossils before they were chiseled out and sent off to the Royal Ontario Museum.
It seems that these jellyfish were hanging out in the vicinity of a shrimp-like animal called Anomalocaris canadensis. Whether the shrimp was planning to eat the jellyfish, or vice versa, we will likely never know. These mysteries of the ancient oceans are destined to remain mysteries.
Some people have taken to calling them “sea jellies” instead of “jellyfish” because, technically, they are not fish. Which is pretty obvious. But things that live in the sea are often mislabeled. A sea horse, for example, is not a horse. A sea cucumber is not a cucumber. And the great blue whale is actually a grayish color. So I’m completely comfortable calling them “jellyfish”.
It turns out that modern jellyfish are edible. Something I didn’t know, previously. They are considered a delicacy in some Asian countries, where species in the Rhizostomeae order are pressed and salted to remove excess water. Australian researchers have described them as a “perfect food”: sustainable and protein-rich, but relatively low in food energy.
My mom never served us jellyfish when I was growing up, and I’m pretty sure she didn’t know they were edible. She had no objection to serving various other types of jelly, however. Her favorite was Concord Grape jelly.
We can probably assume that jellyfish were edible 500 million years ago. But there again, we have a mystery.
I bring up the subject of eating jellyfish because, in my opinion, the shrimp in the Burgess Shale fossil is eyeballing those two jellyfish, and thinking about dinner. But in vain.
According to Wikipedia, thousands of swimmers worldwide are stung every year by jellyfish, with effects ranging from mild discomfort to serious injury or even death.
So maybe the shrimp was lucky? (But not lucky enough to avoid getting fossilized.)
When conditions are favorable, modern jellyfish can form vast swarms, and in some instances, they can be responsible for damaging fishing gear, and sometimes for clogging the cooling systems of power and desalination plants.
These were hazards that Burgessomedusa phasmiformis never had to deal with, 500 million years ago. But then, there were the hungry shrimp.
I mentioned that certain characteristics of jellyfish could be embraced by humans, if we wanted our species to survive 500 million years. Keep things simple. And be transparent.
Most jellyfish, nowadays, are transparent. They aren’t hiding anything. What you see is what you get.
And I would personally like our government to be a lot more transparent.
If we could elect a jellyfish to be the U.S. President, that might be the best thing that could ever happen.
I doubt that will occur. At least, not this year.
But I’m willing to be surprised.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.