EVERYDAY SCIENCE

Detailed explanation-1: -Scyphozoans are the more commonly thought of Cnidarians. They have a true medusa stage and can be very large. This are often referred to as Jellyfish, the largest one known can have a bell over 10ft in diameter. Scyphozoans spend most of their life in the medusa stage and some species may often lack a polyp stage.

Detailed explanation-2: -Cubozoans have a square shape when viewed from above. (Gee, maybe that’s how they got their name.) They also have four evenly spaced out tentacles or bunches of tentacles and well-developed eyes. Not surprisingly, given their squishy nature, there are not many fossil cubozoans known.

Detailed explanation-3: -Class Cubozoa includes jellies that have a box-shaped medusa: a bell that is square in cross-section; hence, they are colloquially known as “box jellyfish.” These species may achieve sizes of 15–25 cm.

Detailed explanation-4: -Cubozoans have separate sexes and fertilization occurs inside the female. Planula larvae may develop inside the female or be released, depending on species. Each planula develops into a polyp. These polyps may bud to form more polyps to create a colony; each polyp then transforms into a single medusa.