Tell me, what is the longest animal in the world? Blue whale, it is a marine giant with a body length of more than 30 meters. Wrong! What animal is that? It is longer than a blue whale. You wouldn't believe it was a jellyfish. I've seen it in the aquarium. Not that long. It's not the same as the jellyfish we usually see. This is a tubular jellyfish recently discovered by Australian scientists. Its length can reach an astonishing 45 meters. No wonder it is called the longest animal in the world.
Tube jellyfish are social animals with independent animal life characteristics composed of many individuals. So, it also leaves scientists wondering if the previous definition of individual life should change. Recently, scientists from the Schmidt Institute of Oceanography discovered a strange creature in the southern waters of Australia, which they also call the world's longest animal.
So how did these scientists find out? At the time, the crew of a research vessel was surveying and exploring the depths of a deep-sea canyon by remotely controlled unmanned submersible. In the process, they accidentally discovered the creature. It's just a jellyfish. It's particularly complicated because, strictly speaking, it's not really a living thing. Rather, it is a social organism, formed by a combination of myeloid and polymorphic zoospores connecting, which have been aggregated into a new functional living individual. What does that jellyfish look like? Tube jellyfish is a translucent linear organism that lives in a state that, uh, somewhat resembles coral.
It consists of many smaller organisms, and these individuals are called zoospores. This oil transfer spore is a small member of a complex organism that forms a tube jellyfish. However, the essence of the oil zoospores is also a multicellular organism. All zoospores originate from an initial fertilized egg, and then, after nearly 1,000 clonings, more zoospores are produced, eventually forming more complex tubular jellyfish. So, the genes of these zoospores are the same. In terms of individuals, these zoospores have the same self-survival structure as other animals.
What is the difference between the two? There are two important differences between them. The first is that the zoospores of tube jellyfish have specific functions. Different zoospores are endowed with different properties, and when they acquire one function, they lose the ability to perform other functions. They can be regularly arranged at the top of the tube jellyfish, contracting through muscle rhythms, pushing the tube jellyfish to move, but these zoospores can only perform this single function. What about oily spores with predatory functions? There will be elongated antennae responsible for catching food, and they will be sent into the tube jellyfish by another type of siphon individual for nutrient intake. What about the latter two zoospores? Only these two features do not provide swimming ability. Another difference between jellyfish and other species is that these particular zoospores have a fixed arrangement, all the same within the same genera, but may be arranged differently between species. In this case, each zoospore with independent viability together forms a more complex life, which is the zoospores.
They are already multicellular organisms with the same characteristics as other animals as defined by the scientific community. Should we call zoospores living organisms, or should we call whole tube jellyfish living organisms? Hey, that's a good question. In fact, in the long history of life, the stomach evolved to digest food, the lungs evolved to breathe, and the kidneys evolved to urinate and filter waste. We've assembled cells into organs that we need to work in subtle ways.
But tube jellyfish are different. From beginning to end, it is cloned from a fertilized egg. Finally, different clones have different functions. So, it's the tube jellyfish that turns itself into an organ. It's like saying that your liver declares independence, and I am an independent being. Well, I can't go anywhere. And trying to answer the question of what an individual is is also because the tube jellyfish has become more complicated.
When we take apart the concept of the individual and divide it into environmental individuals, behavioral individuals, and evolutionary individuals, irrigation mothers have different answers. From the perspective of the environmental individual, whether it is the criterion for judging whether it is an individual or not, so that it can hunt independently, then at this point, the irrigation mother is a living individual. Tube jellyfish have their own independent behavior, so tube jellyfish are also individuals in behavior, so tube jellyfish are living individuals. Don't worry, but evolutionarily all zoospores have the same genes, all have a clone source, and are born and die almost simultaneously. So the tube jellyfish is indeed the basis of an individual, but evolution has made it form this mode of survival.
But if we look for the roots of these zoospores on flower trees, we will find that, compared to other species, they are, uh, roughly equivalent to water-absorbing bodies, while hydra can live independently in other species, can be called living, so evolutionarily speaking, zoospores can also be called living.