Warty comb jelly, scourge of fisheries, also eats its young

[Judi Lynn]

Researchers say cannibalistic tendency may help explain why the invasive creatures thrive

Nicola Davis
@NicolaKSDavis
Thu 7 May 2020 11.00 EDTLast modified on Thu 7 May 2020 13.55 EDT

When the going gets tough, most parents try to protect their offspring. But the warty comb jelly takes a different tack: it eats them.

Despite initial appearances, comb jellies are not jellyfish but belong to a different group of animals, ctenophora, which swim using tiny hair-like projections called cilia.

While the warty comb jelly is native to the east coast of America, it has caused chaos in European waters where it eats fish larvae and the prey of fish. Indeed, the species caused a collapse of fisheries in the Black Sea in the late 1980s.

“The Black Sea just became this gelatinous ocean,” said Dr Thomas Larsen, an ecologist at Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/07/warty-comb-jelly-scourge-of-fisheries-also-eats-its-young

[mr_lebowski]

1. Assuming that the young can sustain themselves and grow on food that the adult can't eat

for whatever reason ... it's actually a pretty clever strategy.

I mean obviously they didn't THINK of it, but ... you know.

It's essentially a (very) primitive form of gardening.