THE MOON JELLIES REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEN AND DEVELOPMENT
As the moon jelly continues to grow it begins to go through certain stages of maturity such as the : 1. plaluna larva 2.polyp 3. budding polyp 4. ephyra 5. medusa (as seen below). The most important stages in the moon jellies life are the polyp stage and the medusa stage. The polyp stage involves mainly the process of asexual reproduction. "A mature polyp reproduces asexually, known as budding forming an entire colony of polyps. Polyps specializing in reproduction produce ephyra (small medusae) by budding. The medusae swim off and mature. They then reproduce sexually. From the egg and the sperm of two medusae, a zygote is formed. The zygote develops into a planula (larva)." (1)
(1)http://tolweb.org/treehouses/?treehouse_id=3373
(1)http://tolweb.org/treehouses/?treehouse_id=3373
Once the medusae detaches itself from the planula larva, the process starts all over again. The moon jelly fish don't have any physical contact between male and female when mating . The male simply releases a strand of sperm In the water and the females become fertilized through their mouths. After becoming a clone , it takes 3 months for a moon jelly to become fully grown. Due to the moon jelly being an r- strategist they can have up to 30-40 0ffspring but they do stay with their offspring until they are mature.