Imagine if your arms or fingers were like a swiss army knife and could do just about everything and anything like; attract prey, change length, shoot weapons, go fishing, digest food and excrete your waste.
Well, it just so happens that an animal like this does exist with all these awesome traits. The good news is that it would be highly unlikely to ever find yourself at the dinner table with it.
Meet the Irukandji, which is really tricky to say let alone spell. Pronounced (ira-can-gee) it’s a type of box jellyfish, named for their distinctive box-like body or ‘bell’ with a single long tentacle coming down from each corner.
They’re one of the tiniest of the box jellyfish measuring only 2.5cm, with tentacles that can be 40 times the length of its body. Although there are only 4 tentacles, they do a lot of multi-tasking.
They’re used for fishing for prey. The tentacles are covered in bright little balls and when they are quickly extended and contracted it acts like a lure or fishing rod attracting fish.
If you’re a fish foolish enough to take a close look at these little balls, you’ll get a face full of pain as they’re clusters of tiny harpoons (nematocysts) filled with venom that discharge on contact. They’re the only box jellyfish that has been discovered to actively fish for its prey.
The venom paralyses the prey and it’s passed up to the mouth (which is in the inside of the bell) and into the stomach. Here it’s partly digested and then passed back down the inner section of the tentacles (which act like our intestines) where the rest of the food is processed and all the fishy goodness absorbed.
Any waste is simply passed out the end of the tentacles. So essentially it has 1 mouth and 4 bums, which is impressive for an animal that is made up of 96% water.
If you want to geek it up and find out more about these cute cubozoans (see we’re already using fancy words) check out this study:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0124256
