A new study has found that box jellyfish, unlike normal jellyfish, are active swimmers that can make rapid turns and dart between objects. This agility is made possible by one set of their 24 eyes, which detects objects that get in their way.
Scientists have long suspected that box jellyfish have a sophisticated set of eyes that enable them to avoid obstacles as they swim across the ocean floor, and now this new study has confirmed it.
The eyes of box jellyfish are located on cup-like structures that hang from their cube-shaped bodies. Unlike humans, who have one set of multi-purpose eyes that sense color, size, shape, and light intensity, box jellyfish have four different types of special-purpose eyes.
One set of eyes is more sophisticated and can detect the color and size of objects, while another set detects only light levels. To understand how these eyes operate, researchers at Lund University in Sweden conducted experiments to test if the eyes help the jellyfish avoid obstacles.
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