This article first appeared in Issue 6 of our free digital magazine CURIOUS. 

A lot of money has gone into blasting off to space of late, but if your astronomical interest piques at the prospect of alien life, you needn’t look any further than Earth’s oceans for some wacky species. Case in point: the fried egg jellyfish, Cotylorhiza tuberculata. 

Also known as egg-yolk jellies, for obvious reasons, their rounded eggy bells can pulse for active swimming, though they spend most of their time motionless. Animals like crabs like to hitch a ride on these jellies, safely cruising on the non-stinging end.

Found in the western Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Pacific Oceans, they do have stingers but they have a very mild effect on humans.

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