In 2007, researchers uncovered a jellyfish fossil that dates back at least 500 million years. This discovery made them the oldest multicellular animal to still exist. The translucent umbrella shape portion of the jellyfish is lined with muscles that help them propel themselves. Due to their stinging tentacles, we can also call them Medusa.
Read our curated list of jellyfish quotes to discover more about the floating blob of evolutionary success.
Quick links to our selection of jellyfish quotes:
Related: For more reading, you might like our article on the different types of jellyfish species, and for more weird and wonderful from the animal kingdom, check out our list of the world's ugliest animals.
The best feature, perhaps, of jellyfish is having almost nothing at all. The gelatinous creature has no brain, heart, bones, lungs, or eye and is around 95% water. How can they survive? They have no blood to pump. The oxygen passes through their thin skin. Instead of brains, they have concentrated nerves. They don't have it because they simply don't need it!
Let's start the list with profound jellyfish quotes while you digest the mind-blowing facts above.
"Life is a beautiful magnificent thing, even to a jellyfish."
"The jellyfish doesn't actively move anywhere - it's just moved with the tides. Is that what man is? Man's just the jellyfish: stuff happens to you, and you get twisted in different directions."
"A person without conviction is a weak, jellyfish type of individual who mindlessly follows the crowd."
"The body is so easily damaged, so easily disposed of, water and chemicals is all it is, hardly more to it than a jellyfish drying on sand."
"We need to encourage an attitude of constant questioning, which is a genuine part of our potential as students. If students were required to drop their questions that would create armies of zombies- rows of jellyfish. The questioning mind is absolutely necessary."
Throughout the millions of years of jellyfish evolution, one species achieved a goal humans would be jealous of - immortality. The immortal jellyfish repeatedly cheats death by reverting to its younger self and restarting its life cycle unless eaten by predators. Nevertheless, it caught the attention of the science community.
Some have researched their genes already. We may or may not reach immortality, but studying these immortal fellows could lead us to exciting medical advancements.
Be amazed by these bell-shaped creatures as you browse the following jellyfish quotes about the animal's behavior in nature.
"Jellyfish serve as a model for bioengineers for the same reason yeast were once so valuable to geneticists: they're simple to deconstruct."
"If we don't manage this resource, we will be left with a diet of jellyfish and plankton stew."
"Nature has provided two great gifts: life and then the diversity of living things, jelly fish and humans, worms and crocodiles. I don't undervalue the investigation of commonalities but can't avoid the conclusion that diversity has been relatively neglected, especially as concerns the brain."
"A jellyfish is little more than a pulsating bell, a tassel of trailing tentacles and a single digestive opening through which it both eats and excretes - as regrettable an example of economy of design as ever was."
Jellyfish take two forms in their lifetime and thus have two ways to multiply. When it's in polyp form, they reproduce asexually by cloning themselves and bud into another stage called ephyra. When it grows to adult jellyfish or a medusa form, it will now reproduce sexually. Depending on the species, the developed jellyfish embryo or planula grows into adult medusas or polyps.
Most probably, jellyfish have survived millions of years because of these bizarre reproduction processes. Skim through these jellyfish quotes and check the perception of authors and poets toward these boneless creatures.
"What we see before us is just one tiny part of the world. We get in the habit of thinking, this is the world, but that's not true at all. The real world is a much darker and deeper place than this, and much of it is occupied by jellyfish and things We just happen to to forget all that. Don't you agree? Two-thirds of earth's surface is ocean, and all we can see with the naked eye is the surface: the skin."
"Truth on our level is a different thing from truth for the jellyfish."
"When you move like a jellyfish, rhythm don't mean nothing. You go with the flow, you don't stop. Move like a jellyfish, rhythm means nothing.You go with the flow you don't stop."
"How remarkable we are in our ability to hide things from ourselves - our conscious minds only a small portion of our actual minds, jellyfish floating on a vast dark sea of knowing and deciding."
"We've survived raging rivers, men with spears, dehydration, the Triggers, oceanic storms, jellyfish stings, Pandora Wars, hypothermia, avalanches. We've come out the other side alive and bitter. We want the Cure. And we want revenge."
"My angels are jellyfish, electric, nearly invisible, armed with poisoned harpoons. My archangels are yellow tang. They feed on sunlight. They speak through color. Anything in their paths turns blind."
As mentioned in earlier parts, jellyfish have no eyes, but they are not unaware of their surroundings. They do have eyes, which are not the same structurally as the animal eye we know. Jellyfish have sensory structures called rhopalia that can detect light, movement, and direction. You’ll note these are located strategically at the jellyfish's bell's borders.
Be in awe of how simple creatures have evolved and survived with limited organs. As you read these jellyfish quotes, get an idea of how you can compare jellyfish to situations and objects.
"My philosophy is to float like a jellyfish and let the market push me where it wants to go. I try to figure out what strategies are working in the market. One year it might be momentum, another year it might be value."
"You are a jellyfish, a motherly, motherly jellyfish protecting the sanctity of your relationship. You need to sting the threats to your relationship, and if you need to sting him in the process, you gotta sting him."
"The Internet is like a giant jellyfish. You can't step on it. You can't go around it. You've got to get through it."
"Orchestras have often been used to conjure up the natural world: swans, sharks, trout, but not, as far as I know, the often maligned jellyfish."
"Nest of Soviet fellow travelers clacking busybodies in a Soviet jellyfish front, sitting here in Leesburg oozing out their funny little propaganda and making nuisances of themselves."
Jellyfish might look innocent due to their blob-like appearance and free-floating behavior. But, they can actually bring discomfort when their tentacles touch us. The effects could range from itchiness, stinging pain, or, worse instant death.
In fact, one of the most venomous animals is the box jellyfish. After getting stung, the toxins attack the heart and nervous system. Casualties usually experience cardiac arrest, paralysis, or death in as fast as two minutes.
When you read the remaining funny jellyfish quotes, remember never to let your guard down when you spot a jellyfish while swimming.
"The fact that jellyfish have survived for 650 million years without brains should give hope to some people."
"I've never been hurt by a sea creature, except for jellyfish and sea urchins."
"Without fake tan I have the skin tones of a dead jellyfish."
"The U.S. was the immigration country of choice even for alien jellyfish things that turned humans into scary monsters. It made you proud, really."
"I don't like jellyfish, they're not a fish, they're just a blob. They don't have eyes, fins or scales like a cod. They float about blind, stinging people in the seas, And no one eats jellyfish with chips and mushy peas. Get rid of 'em!"
"Who's going to rob us? A crackhead crab? A jellyfish junkie?"
"I am a disaster magnet. I came home from our first anniversary vacation with jellyfish stings, a puncture wound from a wrought iron pineapple and a cork-shaped bruise in my cleavage."
"I'd like to be a jellyfish, 'cause jellyfish don't pay rent."
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