Pelagia noctiluca is considered the most important jellyfish in Mediterranean Sea, due to its abundance and severity of stings. Despite importance marine ecosystems health problems caused by massive arrival coastal areas, little known about early life stages cnidome has never been described. This study morphological anatomical features throughout cycle identifies four stages: two ephyra metaeph...

Aurelia sp. (scyphozoa; Moon Jellies) are one of the most common and widely distributed species of jellyfish. Their behaviours include swimming up in response to somatosensory stimulation, swimming down in response to low salinity, diving in response to turbulence, avoiding rock walls, forming aggregations, and horizontal directional swimming. These are not simple reflexes. They are species typ...

Morphological variation in qualitative and quantitative features is compared among species of Aurelia defined a priori using molecular criteria. Macromorphological features were more numerous than previously implied (28 cf. 17), most were variable (26 of 28), and all species were morphologically distinguishable using univariate, multivariate and phylogenetic statistics. However, due to discrepa...

A large fraction of primary production is recycled through a marine protozoa–bacterioplankton predator– prey chain in most aquatic ecosystems. The size of food resources and the ratio between predators and prey determine the organic matter transfer through the ‘classical’ or the ‘microbial’ pathway (Azam et al. 1983). The effect of grazers on the prey can play an important role in selectivity a...

Cnidarian toxins represent a rich source of biologically active compounds. Since they may act via oxidative stress events, the aim of the present study was to verify whether crude venom, extracted from the jellyfish Pelagia noctiluca, elicits inflammation and oxidative stress processes, known to be mediated by Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) production, in rats. In a first set of experiments, the...

Jellyfish are recorded with increasing frequency and magnitude in many coastal areas and several species display biological features comparable to the most popular Asiatic edible jellyfish. The biochemical and antioxidant properties of wild gelatinous biomasses, in terms of nutritional and nutraceutical values, are still largely unexplored. In this paper, three of the most abundant and commonly...