Do jellyfish ever get their tentacles(?) tangled? If so, do they die? How do they get unknotted?
In: Biology
Think of sally who has the longest hair in class. When sally goes underwater, does her hair become tangled as she shifts directions in water? They don’t because of how inertia works in water. Each strand of hair flows uniformly in the same direction.
Lets say hypothetically they get attacked by some bored dolphin and it decides to leave after trying to eat one. The inertia from the water will naturally flow between the strands and they will eventually untangle. If it dies, it’s because the dolphin ate that thing whole.
They have muscles in their tentacles! It’s love of hard to imagine, but the closest thing humans have is our tongue. If we had eight long tongues (this is getting weird), they wouldn’t get tangled because we could control where they are. Even if someone tried to tangle them, we could just move them in such a way as to untangle them.
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I am no expert, but their tentacles are very slippery (as well as their body), and it would be very hard to tangle the tentacles.
It’s probably possible though, but it would require a good amount of force and some good tightening of the knot.
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Jellyfish tentacles are not some collection of dead cells that hang without control. A jellyfish can move them, contract and expand, so if they do get tangled, they can get untangled as well.
It’s the slippery factor. But, they can get tangled when put in unnatural conditions like aquariums with artificial continuous flow. They’re evolved to live with fluctuating currents, and their own tentacles slide over and off each other. When kept in close quarters with other things–other jellyfish, corals, fish, etc–they can get caught in those items or sting the live objects to death.
Yes. It is difficult due to their tentacles being slippery, as well as slightly mechanical (they can move them a bit); but, it is definitely possible for two strands of anything to get tangled. Think about noodles in a big bowl of ramen, for the most part they stay separated. But sometimes, a few get too tangled and they get stuck together. It doesn’t take much for them to become unknotted, maybe some slight tugging.
I doubt that a jellyfish would die due it though, this would require enough of their tentacles being immobilized that they can no longer eat.
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