How big can jellyfish grow to?

Answer 1

Theoretically there is no limit to the size that a Echizen can grow.

The largest Echizen that I'm aware of, measured about 17 feet across. They are squat jellyfish, so their length is about the same size as their breath. But they still can look HUMUNGOUS next to a diver.

There are three factors that effect Echizen Jellyfish size:

1) Weightlessness. Creatures that live on land have gravity-based limits to their size. If they get too large they will crush their own organs and / or break their own bones and structural support. Creatures that live all the time in the water have no such limitations because their bodies are supported by the water they live in. This then gives most sea-creatures size limits based on how long they live, and how much they can eat.

2) Water Temperature: The Echizen Jelly cannot survive in cold water, so they have historically died when winter comes if they are as far north as Japan. So most cannot live even 1 year, creating a size limit based solely on the amount it can eat in about a year.

3) Abundance of Food:

a) The Echizen Jellyfish have no sence of being "full", as we do, and so will eat all of it's foodsource (zoe-plankton) that is available. Overfishing has depleated it's main rival for the plankton that it eats, leaving much more for the Echizen Jellyfish to consume than in the past.

b) Over the past 100 years or so, the amount of nutrients comming out of China's Yangtsee River has risen exponentially, causing a hypernutrification of both the river, it's estuary, and the surrounding seas. This (as we know) creates an environment that allows huge amounts of algie, sometimes referred to as an 'algie bloom' to occure, along with potentially fatal low oxygen levels that may kill off more of the plankton's prediters.

c) This hyperabundance of algie, which is the foodsource for the plankton, in turn creates a hyperabundance of the plankton which the Echizen Jellyfish eats.

4) Global / Oceanic Warming (climate change)

a) The oceans have been seadily warming every year for decades, which causes two things, allowing the E.J. to live longer and also to spread over more territory by moving further north each year, which has been well documented by the Japanese fishing industry.

b) If ocean temperatures continue to rise, the Echian Jellyfish will eventually be able to survive the winter in greater numbers, allowing them to grow even larger than ever before.

So: (Human Waste) + (Overfishing) + (Warmer Oceans) = Giant Jellyfish!

Answer 2

The Nomura's jellyfish, or echizen kurage, Nemopilema nomurai, can grow over 6 feet in diameter, and weigh over 440 pounds. The slightly larger lion's mane jelly, Cyanea capillata, can grow up to 7 feet in diameter, and have tentacles over 120 feet long.

Answer 3

depends on the species they go from speks to the size of a boat depends on the species they go from speks to the size of a boat

Answer 4

A giant box jellyfish can reach tentacle lengths up to 10ft or more. Its head can reach lengths as large as a huge television.

Answer 5

The largest Nomura's jellyfish in late autumn can reach 200 centimeters (79 in) in bell (body) diameter and about 200 kilograms (440 lb) in weight.

Answer 6

it can get as big as a giant squid.

Answer 7

2 to 3 feet long

Answer 8

it depends on the jellyfish

Answer 9

Lion's mane jellyfish can grow larger than a blue whale!