True jellyfish · Semaeostomeae · Cyaneidae

Lion's Mane Jellyfish

Cyanea capillata

Not Evaluated

It has not yet been assessed against the IUCN criteria. See full glossary

The Arctic lion's mane jellyfish or giant lion's mane jellyfish is a scyphozoan cnidarian of the family Cyaneidae. It is the largest jellyfish in existence. No subspecies are recognised.

Size

up to 2.5 m

Lifespan

1 years

Social structure

Solitary

Lives and hunts alone, joining others only to breed.

Sighting difficulty

Unknown

OceanSolitary Ocean Cnidarian

17countries 47parks 28dive sites

Fun facts

It is the largest jellyfish in the world. The largest recorded specimen, stranded in Massachusetts Bay in 1870, had a bell 2.3 metres across and tentacles almost 37 metres long: longer than a blue whale.
Its tentacles, up to 1,200 of them, hang in eight groups forming the dense curtain that gives it the name lion's mane.
Despite its size it lives only a year: the medusa appears in spring, grows all summer and dies in autumn.
Its sting is painful but rarely dangerous. It features in the Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Lion's Mane, by Arthur Conan Doyle.
Juvenile cod and other fish shelter among its tentacles, immune to the sting, using it as a mobile escort.

Life cycle & biology

Habitat & environment: Cold waters of the North Atlantic, the North Pacific and the Arctic seas; it drifts through the water column trailing a curtain of tentacles

Sources consulted: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanea_capillata