LEVELED BOOK • O

You’re a Jellyfish!
A Reading A–Z Level O Leveled Book
Word Count: 718

Written by Kira Freed • Illustrated by Cende Hill

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You’re a Jellyfish!
Level O Leveled Book
© Learning A–Z Correlation
Written by Kira Freed Written by Kira Freed LEVEL O
Illustrated by Cende Hill
Illustrated by Cende Hill Fountas & Pinnell M
All rights reserved. Reading Recovery 20
www.readinga-z.com www.readinga-z.com
DRA 28
 Table of Contents This is a lion’s mane jellyfish.

Floating at Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Floating at Sea
Jelly Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Imagine that your body is shaped like
Getting Around . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
a bell, and you have long tentacles
Life Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 streaming down under you. You are
Hunter and Hunted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 mostly made of water and cannot survive
away from it. You live in the ocean and
People and Jellyfish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
travel by floating gracefully on currents.
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
You’re a jellyfish, or jelly, and not a fish
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 at all. You’re a kind of invertebrate—an
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 animal that has no backbone.

You’re a Jellyfish! • Level O 3 4

You and your jellyfish cousins live in Jelly Bodies
every ocean in the world. Some also live
Like all jellyfish, you have no brain,
in lakes and ponds. Some live in warm
heart, blood, or bones. Your body is
water, and others prefer cold water. Some
made of water, muscles, and nerves. You
of your cousins are survivors—they’ve
use your eyespots and nerve network to
been around for 650 million years, since
sense up and down, light and dark, and
long before the time of dinosaurs.
the world around you.

The main part of your body is your bell.

Tentacles hang from around your edges
like fringe.
bell
A mouth and
digestive sac
digestive sac
mouth
hang in the
center. Some
of your
cousins have
frilly oral
arms, or
mouth arms,
around this
sac.
oral arms
These West Coast sea nettles look like a fleet of spaceships. tentacles

You’re a Jellyfish! • Level O 5 6

 Getting Around

As a jellyfish,
you spend most
of your time
drifting on ocean
currents. But you
can also move
when you want
to. First you let
Do You Know?
The smallest jellyfish is your bell fill with
as tiny as a pearl. The largest water. Then you
jellyfish is the lion’s mane
jellyfish. Its bell is wider than
squeeze the
Then they pump it out again.
the length of a bed. Its tentacles muscles in your
can be as long as a school bus!
bell the way a
person blows
You and your cousins come in many a bubble with
shapes, sizes, and colors. Jellyfish that bubble gum. As
live near the ocean’s surface are often you force water
clear, or see-through. Jellies that live out of your bell,
deep in the ocean may be red or purple. you shoot
Some jellies are white with splashes of forward.
color. Some deep-sea jellyfish even glow
Jellyfish take in water.
in the dark!

You’re a Jellyfish! • Level O 7 8

Some of your jellyfish cousins swim close Life Cycle
to the ocean’s surface to bask in sunlight.
You began your jellyfish life as an egg
Others avoid light and stay deeper in the
released into water by your mom. After
ocean. Some live in the open ocean, while
your dad fertilized the egg, it grew into
others stay closer to shore.
a tiny wormlike animal called a planula
Like all jellyfish, you are not a social (PLAN-yoo-luh). The planula floated in
animal. But divers and scientists often water for a few weeks. Then it attached
find your kind in large groups. You and to a rock and developed into a polyp
the other jellies aren’t enjoying each (PAHL-ip).
other’s company. You just happen to be
Over time, the polyp cloned itself
in the same place at the same time.
through a process called budding. It
grew disks that popped off, swam away,
and developed into adult jellyfish. One
of those adults, or medusas (muh-DOO-
suz), is you!

adult
young medusa
medusa

budding egg
polyp polyp

planula

The moon jellyfish is one of the almost 200 kinds of jellyfish. Life Cycle of a Jellyfish

You’re a Jellyfish! • Level O 9 10

 1. 2. Many animals avoid eating you and
This shrimp
will make a
your cousins. After all, who wants a
tasty meal. mouthful of stinging cells? But some
animals don’t seem to mind at all. Sea
turtles and some fish and birds think
3. of jellyfish as a real treat. You try hard
to protect yourself from being eaten by
hiding or by stinging. Still, many of
your cousins are eaten while they are
still growing or as adults.

Hunter and Hunted

Do You
Like other jellyfish, you like Know?
One kind
to eat fish, crabs, shrimp, and of jellyfish
tiny marine animals. The grows its own
key to successful hunting food. The
upside-down
is the stinging cells in your jellyfish lies on
tentacles. You catch prey as the bottom of
shallow warm
it floats through the water.
oceans. It eats
Some of your cousins also algae and then
have a glow that attracts fish. grows more
just by sitting
Others have a sticky gel that in the sunlight.
catches animals passing by. Jellyfish are the main food of leatherback sea turtles.

You’re a Jellyfish! • Level O 11 12

 Australian sea wasp Jellyfish Stings
Symptoms:
• Intense stinging pain
• Red rash
• Swollen, raised patches of skin
• Nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea
• Fever, chills, and sweating
• Back and abdominal pain
Treatment:
Do You Know? • Rinse with seawater (not fresh water).
A jellyfish called the Australian sea wasp is one of
the most poisonous animals in the world. A sting can kill • Don’t rub the wound or apply ice.
a person in three minutes. • Apply white vinegar to the wound.
• Remove tentacles using gloves, a heavy cloth,
or tweezers.
People and Jellyfish • Stay as still as possible to keep the poison
from spreading.
People often see your jellyfish cousins • See a doctor right away in case of
on beaches. Sadly, those jellies are either breathing problems, severe pain, or other
dead or dying. People need to remember intense symptoms.
to never touch a jellyfish! Even a dead
jelly can sting.

Most of your jellyfish cousins have a

mild sting that is painful and causes a
red rash. But the sting of some jellies can
be deadly.

You’re a Jellyfish! • Level O 13 14

 Glossary
bask (v.) to rest and soak up sunlight (p. 9)
budding (n.) reproducing by growing a bud
that breaks off (p. 10)
cloned (v.) duplicated (p. 10)
currents (n.) steady-moving water that flows
in a single direction (p. 4)
invertebrate (n.) a kind of animal without
a backbone (p. 4)
Big Red, discovered in 2003, has oral arms but no tentacles. marine (adj.) found in the ocean (p. 11)
medusas (n.) adult jellyfish (p. 10)
Conclusion planula (n.) the larva of a jellyfish (p. 10)
polyp (n.) a tentacled, tubelike creature
Scientists learn new facts about jellyfish attached to a solid surface; a stage
every year. They also often discover in the life cycle of a jellyfish (p. 10)
new kinds of jellies. In 2003, a large social (adj.) friendly; enjoying the company
of others (p. 9)
red jellyfish that has no tentacles was
tentacles (n.) thin limbs on an animal,
discovered off the coast of California.
especially an invertebrate (p. 4)
People enjoy looking at jellyfish at zoos
Index
or aquariums. Watching you gently
Australian sea wasp,  13 moon jellyfish,  9
float through water is fun and relaxing.
bell,  4, 6 oral arms,  6, 15
Even without brains, your cousins must Big Red,  15 stinging cells,  11, 12
be pretty smart to have survived for jellyfish stings,  13, 14 tentacles,  6, 7, 11, 14, 15
millions of years! lion’s mane jellyfish,  7 upside-down jellyfish,  11

You’re a Jellyfish! • Level O 15 16