For 90 years, a small, translucent aquatic animal has slowly, rhythmically bobbed its way across Michigan, and now is the time of year when it makes its annual appearance.
Adult freshwater jellyfish, known as medusa because of their tentacles that resemble the mythical figure’s snake hair, tend to appear when water temperatures warm to 70 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
The jellies first appeared in the state in 1933, according to Michigan Department of Natural Resources Fisheries Supervisor Brian Gunderman.
“They can be in lakes for a long time just in the polyp form, just kind of sitting on the bottom of the lake and we never know they’re there,” Gunderman told WMUK.
“They are originally from, we believe, the Yangzi River basin in China. But they are now distributed throughout the Lower Peninsula and a little bit of the Upper Peninsula, and really throughout the world.”
Researchers think the Peach Blossom jellyfish, as it’s also known, hitched a ride on aquatic plant species from China.
They don’t pose a known threat to Michigan ecosystems, and while they sting to catch microscopic organisms, that sting is too weak for people to feel.
