The appearance of "living fossil" peach blossom jellyfish in Nantong is the first record in the coastal area of the Yangtze River

On the 16th, according to the clues of the masses and the identification of experts, the staff of the Nantong Environmental Monitoring Center in Jiangsu Province found a rare creature - peach blossom jellyfish in the Nantong Economic and Technological Development Zone. This is the first record of the coastal area of the Yangtze River after the discovery of peach blossom jellyfish in the Taihu Lake Basin, and Nantong has not been reported before.

On June 13, some owners of Vanke Emerald Heart Lake in the Municipal Economic and Technological Development Zone found that a rare creature appeared in the artificial lake of the community, resembling a peach blossom, like a small parachute. After receiving the feedback from the public, the staff of the Nantong Environmental Monitoring Center in Jiangsu Province immediately went to carry out special monitoring. The peach blossom jellyfish habitat observed at the scene is a closed artificial lake, the water body is clear, the transparency is about 50 cm, there are more water plants, and a large number of peach blossom jellyfish groups can be seen swimming on the surface of the water. After sampling on the spot, the monitoring personnel took it back to the laboratory for microscopic observation and photography, and analyzed the physical and chemical indicators of the water body. Through on-site observation and microscopic observation, after verification by relevant experts, it was confirmed that it was a peach blossom jellyfish, which was very rare.

"Peach blossom jellyfish are picky by nature, only appear in harsh environmental conditions, are excellent environmental indicator organisms, and are very rare. Under the conditions of high-quality clear water, weak acid, adequate food, and water temperature of 25-30 degrees Celsius, the survival time is only 1-2 months. The monitor told reporters that the peach blossom jellyfish is a genus of the hydrae family of freshwater jellyfish, is the only freshwater life of the small jellyfish, feeding on small zooplankton, some peach blossom jellyfish species are listed in the Chinese red list of endangered, critically endangered level. In China's Yangtze River Basin, it basically appears in the early summer.

How can peach blossom jellyfish appear in the artificial lake of the community? Where do they come from? Peach blossom jellyfish through the two stages of the hydra body and the jellyfish body, must be attached to a certain substrate, when the conditions are suitable for the hydra body end to expand and "grow" into a jellyfish.

Gong Jie, associate professor of the College of Life Sciences (College of Oceanography) of Nantong University, explained that at that time, the community may have brought in the water body during the construction of the artificial lake to divert water; another possibility is that the discovery site is relatively close to the Yangtze River, and there are many water birds, which bring the form of water hydra and dormant eggs and are deposited at the bottom of the artificial lake. The appearance of peach blossom jellyfish in Nantong is evidence of the good quality of Nantong's ecological environment.

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Peach blossom jellyfish: also known as "peach blossom fish, parachute fish, hydra jellyfish". China's record of peach blossom jellyfish is the earliest in the world, in 1609 (the thirty-seventh year of the Ming Wanli calendar) "Guizhou Zhi" has a record of "peach blossom fish", which is the earliest record of peach blossom jellyfish in the world. The emergence of peach blossom jellyfish predates dinosaurs, dating back to the Cambrian period 541 million years ago, and is a veritable "living fossil".