.陳翎-不是錢、不是水母的錢幣水母
(Blue Button: Not a Coin or a Jellyfish)

海邊漂來一種藍白色的水母，人稱牠錢幣水母，但是碰起來硬硬的，好像是透明的圓形骨片。其實牠屬於水螅蟲綱的生物。從側面看，可以看到圓型骨片下面有許多長條狀的觸手，由許多隻水螅蟲個體聚合起來，因此錢幣水母群聚時，更像是一個會浮動漂流的小社區。這種漂浮在水面上看起來像水母，卻與其他水母不同的海洋生物，不會深潛入海中，常在海邊被浪打上岸邊乾死，留下像是透明薄薄的錢幣。我常隨著家人在海邊觀察海洋生物，所以我懷疑這不是個水母。

---

Thisblue and white colored jellyfish floating on the coast is a blue button (Porpita porpita), but in reality this hydrozoa species is actually as hard as rock and resembles more like a round looking transparent sclerite. From the side view, long tentacles are seen extending from underneath the bone piece. Formed by many hydrozoan polyps, it resembles a mini floating community when in a colony. They might look like jellyfish, but they don’t dive or swim and most end up getting washed ashore to dry up, leaving many thin coating coin pieces scattered along the beach. I frequently accompany my family to observe the seashore marine organisms, so am convinced this is not a jellyfish.

國立自然科學博物館版權所有　 Copyright© 2015 National Museum of Natural Science. All rights reserved.
• 地址：40453臺中市北區館前路一號　• 電話：(04)23226940　• 最佳瀏覽：1024*768, IE 7.0以上, Firefox