• Question: if a jelly fish is 95% water then why is it called a fish and not a jelly blob?

    Asked by rash1997 to Clare, Dave, Glo, Ozge, Sean on 20 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Ozge Ozkaya

      Ozge Ozkaya answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      No you’re right it’s not a fish at all, fish are vertebrates, i.e. they have backbones like us but jelly”fish” are cnidaria, in fact they are also called medusa 🙂

    • Photo: Gloeta Massie

      Gloeta Massie answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word ‘jellyfish’ came into play around 1841. Guess it reminded the person of jelly! (Sure does look like it!) Fish was what people called basically everything that they pulled out of the ocean. 🙂 I love the actual Greek name, “medusa”. Such a perfect analogy between the Greek Gorgon who can paralyze you with one look at her face and the paralytic sting of a jellyfish!

    • Photo: Dave Sproson

      Dave Sproson answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Great question! I guess it’s just easy to refer to animals in the sea as fish, even if they’re technically not. It’s similar to the whale-shark being called the whale-shark, even though it has nothing to do with whales (other than being a similar size, and having similar feeding habits to some whales).

    • Photo: Sean Clement

      Sean Clement answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      Because a Jelly blob almost sounds like something you could eat for dessert, no?

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