What do jellyfish eggs look like?

Question

i went to the beach this week and i saw a ton of jelly fish in the gulf of mexico and i saw these things that looked like black beads in a line and when you tried to pick them up they seperated. when i finally picked one up they had a clear jelly-like substance coating them and i saw a jelly fish ,it had one of these behind it. do you know what this might be?

Answer 1

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=...

Answer 2

Did you ever wonder how Jellyfish reproduce with that squishy like body? Well now you're going to find out. Individual Jellyfish are either male or female. The eggs and sperm develop in special areas called Gonads inside the body wall. The gonads are frequently very colorful and add greatly to the beauty of the living Jellyfish. When all of the eggs and sperm are fully developed, they are released into the stomach and then through the mouth into the sea. Some of the eggs stick to the frilly mouth lips which surround the mouth of the Jellyfish. There they are fertilized by the sperm and continue to develop. As in all many-celled animals, the microscopic fertilized eggs begin a series of cell divisions which finally result in an embryo. However, the embryo does not develop directly into a baby jellyfish, but becomes a tiny, flattened creature called a Planula.

The Planula, which is covered with rapidly beating hairlike cilia, is able to swim and may be carried a considerable distance by ocean currents during it's short swimming period, lasting from a few hours to several days. The tiny Planula then makes its way toward the sea bottom where it actively looks for a suitable place to attach itself. At this point, a remarkable series of events take place.

The planula attaches to a rock, shell, pier pilling, or some hard underwater object and immediately begins to grow into a Polyp. The Polyp may continue to live for several years. During this time, it captures small shrimp-like organisms and other tiny marine animals for food. Furthermore, each Polyp produced from a Planula is able to reproduce new Polyps by a process called budding. In budding, completely new Polyps develop from the body wall of the original creature, much like a branch growing from the side of a tree. These become detached as separate small Polyps. This is a type of asexual reproduction, since one Polyp gives rise to several "daughter" polyps without eggs and sperm coming together. This happens usually in the spring. Each Polyp begins a different sort of asexual reproduction. At this time a series of grooves appear in the body of the Polyp, which become deeper and deeper as time goes on. Finally, the grooves become so deep, that they cut all the way though the Polyp body. In this way, a pile of disc-shaped structures resembling a stack of coins or tin saucers is formed. As a matter of fact, each of those coins is an individual baby Jellyfish of the Medusa type. It can now break off from the stack and swim away to begin it's own life as a floating Medusa.

I dont think it would be a jellyfish egg because they would like attach to rocks under the sea. (read info above)

Pictures: http://cache.eb.com/eb/image?id=72182&re...

http://www.animalcorner.co.uk/marine/jel...

Good Luck!