by bintangkecil on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 | News, World

Nomura’s jellyfish is a very large Japanese jellyfish. It is in the same size class as the lion’s mane jellyfish, the largest cnidarian in the world. The diameter of these jellyfish is slightly greater than the height of an average fully grown man.

It grows 2 meters (6 feet 7 inches) in diameter and weighing up to 220 kg (about 450 pounds), Nomura’s jellyfish live principally in the waters between China and Japan, mainly in the central Yellow Sea and East China Sea.

Nomura’s jellyfish has plagued the Japanese seas from 2005 until now. The giant jellyfish attacks have been affecting the fishing industries in Japan as well as affecting the surrounding sea food chain.

A 10-ton Japanese fishing trawler, Diasan Shinsho-Maru, was fishing for Nomura’s jellyfish off the coast of the Chiba As the ship neared a lighthouse, it began to lose its balance. The boat was dragging a net holding a large number of jellyfish, easily putting their weight well above that of the vessel’s. It finally capsized, leaving the captain, Takashi Otsuka, and two crew members, to tread water until another ship rescued them.

The crew of the fishing vessel were thrown into the sea when the ship crashed, three men were rescued but another trawler the Mainichi newspaper. The local Coast Guard office announced that the weather was clear and the sea was calm about the accident.

The last time Japan took a very large, in the summer of 2005, jellyfish nets damaged, rendered the fish inedible to poisonous bites, and even cause injury to the fishermen.

Relatively little is known about Nomura’s jellyfish, such as why some years see thousands of creatures floating in the sea over the Japanese Tsushima Current, but last year there was virtually no sightings. In 2007 were 15,500 reports of damage to fishing equipment, from creatures.

Experts believe that the major factor driving more and more visitors are jellyfish in the waters of Japan may decline predators, including sea turtles and certain species of fish.

Here’s a video of the famous Nomura’s jellyfish “echizen kurage”:

The problem with combating the jellyfish is that when they are under attack or killed, they release billions of sperm or eggs which connect in the water and attach to rocks or coral formations. When the conditions are favorable the creatures detach from their home, millions at a time, and grow into more jellyfish.

In an attempt to utilize the jellyfish in a productive manner, coastal communities in Japan are doing their best to promote jellyfish as a novelty food, sold dried and salted; students in Obama, Fukui (Japan) have managed to turn them into tofu and cookies, and jellyfish collagen is also reported to be beneficial to the skin.

The jellyfish population has become such a substantial problem for Japan that it has led the government to form a committee to combat the problem. They have been creating kill-nets to catch and destroy the jellyfish before they can do any more harm, yet this typically will only result in the aforementioned survival tactic of releasing their sperm and eggs.

Tags: echizen kurage, giant jellyfish, giant nomura jellyfish, giant nomura's jellyfish, japanese giant jellyfish picture, japanese jellyfish, jellyfish, jellyfish sinks japanese boat, meduza nomura, meduzy nomura, nomura, nomura jellyfish photos, nomura meduza, nomura's jelly fish, nomura's jellyfish, nomura's jellyfish photos, nomura's jellyfish picture, nomura's jellyfish video