The Animal with Two Life Cycles

Psalm 148:7
“Praise the LORD from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps:”

The jellyfish almost seems like a creature from a bad science fiction movie. Around 500 species of jellyfish, ranging in size from small marbles to several feet across, inhabit the world’s oceans. Jellyfish have several mouths and will try to eat anything, including each other. Thankfully, the stings of most jellyfish have no effect on human beings.

The jellyfish lives two very different lives, each with different lifestyles and methods of reproduction. The familiar jellyfish form is a swimming lifestyle in which the creatures reproduce sexually. However, in another phase of their life, they are called polyps. In the polyp stage, they look like small anemones, cling to rocks and reproduce by cloning.

Jellyfish cannot move fast enough to chase prey. However, careful study of jellyfish swimming patterns shows that jellyfish don’t swim at random. The pattern in which they swim produces the greatest mathematical likelihood of encountering prey. Biologically jellyfish have only two internal organs: a stomach and sex organs. Although evolutionists tell us jellyfish were among the earliest creatures, some of them have sophisticated brain functions that – outside of jellyfish – are found only in mammals and human beings!

The jellyfish is a tribute to God’s creativity and imagination. Even though the jellyfish appears to be one of the simplest forms of life on Earth, it is also a mathematically precise hunter. Even this living bag of lukewarm Jell-O praises God through its existence.

Prayer:
Heavenly Father, just as nothing in the creation fails to praise You, let me never fail to praise You before Your people, in Your house and before the world. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Notes:
Brownlee, Shannon. 1987. “Jellyfish aren’t out to get us.” Discover, Aug. p. 49.