当心：水母无处不在！
Swimmers Beware:Jellyfish Are Everywhere!
当心：水母无处不在！
Few marine creatures are as mysterious and intimidating as jellyfish, which have been drifting through the world’s oceans for more than 650 million years.
1 Though easily recognized, this animal is often misunderstood. Bathers and beachcombers react with fear upon encountering this invertebrate but, in fact, most jellyfish in South Carolina waters are harmless.
2They look like blobs when washed up on the beach.
3 But in the water—from icy polar seas to tropical Pacific shores
4—jellies are graceful. Jellyfish occur
5 in a wide variety of sizes, shapes and colors. Most are semi-transparent
6 and bell-shaped, measuring less than an inch to over a foot across the bell, although some may reach
7 feet. The tentacles7 of some jellyfish can reach lengths greater than 100 feet. Regardless of their size or shape, most jellyfish are very fragile, often containing less than 5% solid organic matter.
8
Jellyfish are not fish at all. They are invertebrates, relatives of corals and sea anemones.
9 A jelly has no head, brain, heart, eyes, nor ears. It has no bones, either. But that’s no problem! “True” jellyfish possess an elementary nervous system, or nerve net, which consists of receptors capable of detecting light, odor and other stimuli and coordinating appropriate responses.
10 To capture prey for food, jellies have a net of tentacles that contain poisonous cells. The body form displays radial symmetry with body parts radiating from a central axis.
11 This symmetry allows jellyfish to respond to food or danger from any direction. When the tentacles brush against prey (or, say, a person’s leg), thousands of tiny stinging cells explode, launching barbed stingers and poison into the victim.
12The adult jellyfish drifts in the water with limited control over its movements. Almost all jellyfish move by sucking water into their cup-like body and then pushing it out again.
13 The other way the average jellyfish swims is to drift on a gentle current
14. What helps the jellyfish swim is its bell
15 or umbrella shaped body. The body is like two bags, one inside the other, with a layer of jelly in between.
16 There is only one opening in the jellyfish’s body and it leads strait to the four stomach chambers.
17 Thinking about it, you could have the idea they have a very simple body (not surprising seeing as they lived long before dinosaurs
18).Jellyfish may appear to have no apparent value, but they are, in fact, a very important part of the marine food web.
19 Jellyfish are carnivorous, feeding mostly on a variety of zooplankton, comb jellies and occasionally other jellyfish.
20 Larger species, however, are capable of capturing and devouring large crustaceans and other marine organisms.
21 Jellyfish themselves are preyed upon by spadefish, sunfish, loggerhead turtles and other marine organisms.
22 One species, the mushroom jellyfish, is even considered a delicacy by humans.
23 Both fresh and pickled
24 mushroom jellyfish are consumed in large quantities in China and Japan.
If you cut a jellyfish in half the jelly stays firm, and scientists still don’t know why this happens. Another interesting thing that happens when you cut a jellyfish in half (or large pieces) is that the creature keeps living, and if you cut them into small pieces the pieces fuse together and keep living.
25As you can see, there is a lot more to a jellyfish than meets the eye!
1. 几乎没有海洋生物像水母一般神秘、让人生畏，它们已经在海洋里畅游了六亿五千多万年。intimidating: 令人望而生畏的；drift: 漂流，游荡。
2. 游泳的人和在海滨捡漂浮物的人见到这种无脊椎动物时都提心吊胆，但事实上，绝大部分生活在（美国）南卡罗来纳州水域的水母都是不伤人的。bather: 游泳者；beachcomber: 海滨捡漂浮物的人；encounter: 相遇，遭遇；invertebrate: 无脊椎动物；water: [常作~s]水体，水域，领海。
3. 当水母被（海浪）冲上海滩时，它们看起来是一团形状不定的东西。blob: 无一定形状的东西；wash up: （浪头）把……冲上岸。
4. 从冰封的极地海域到热带的太平洋海岸。
5. occur: 存在，出现。
6. semi-transparent: 半透明的。
7. tentacle: 触角，触须。
8. 无论他们的大小和形状如何，大部分水母都非常纤弱，机体中质地坚硬的器官所占比例通常少于5%。
9. coral: 珊瑚；sea anemone: 海葵。
10. “真正的”水母拥有一套初级神经系统，或称神经网，它包括能够探测到光、气味和其他刺激并做出适当反应的接收器。odor: 气味。
11. （水母的）体型呈现完全的对称——身体各部分从中轴呈辐射状分布。symmetry: 对称，匀称；radiate: 呈辐射状发出，从中心发射；axis: 轴线，中心线。
12. 当触角触及猎物的时候（比如说人的腿），上千个细小的刺细胞便喷射出来，将带钩的刺和毒液射入猎物的体内。brush against: 掠过，触及；stinging: 有刺的，该句中的stinger是“蛰刺”的意思。（编者注：有毒水母的刺细胞内有充满毒液的刺胞，在刺胞的顶端有一刺针。刺针一旦接触到猎物便马上脱落，而存在于刺胞内的刺丝也会马上射出，毒液也就经由刺丝注入猎物体内。）
13. 几乎所有的水母移动时，都是将水吸进像杯子一样的身体里，然后再把这些水挤出体外。
14. current: 流，潮流。
15. bell: 水母的伞膜。
16. 身体就好像两个套在一起的袋子，袋子中间夹有一层胶状物质。layer: 层，层次；jelly: 胶，胶状物质。
17. 水母的身体上只有一个开口，它通过一个狭小的通道连接四个胃腔。strait: 狭窄的通道；chamber:（动植物体内的）腔，室。
18. dinosaur: 恐龙。
19. 水母好像看起来没有什么明显的用处，但事实上，他们是海洋食物链网中非常重要的部分。food web: 食物链网，一个生态系统中相互关联的食物链的结合体。
20. carnivorous: 食肉的；zooplankton: 浮游动物；comb jelly: 栉水母。
21. devour: 吞吃；crustacean: 甲壳纲动物。
22. spadefish: 大西洋白鲳；sunfish: 太阳鱼；loggerhead turtle: 蠵龟，一种大型海龟。
23. mushroom jellyfish: 菇形水母；delicacy: 美味，佳肴。
24. pickled: 腌制的。
25. 如果你把水母切成小块儿，这些小块儿会再合并在一起，继续活下来。
26. 水母可远比看起来的复杂得多！meet the eye: 被看到，出现在眼前。\
（编辑:youke）
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