8/30/2012 - West Side Leader
     

Virginia Williams, 9, of Copley, found freshwater jellyfish while swimming in Arrow Lake (shown behind her) in Copley Aug. 26. A closeup of one of the jellyfish is shown above.

Photos courtesy of Heather Williams

That’s what one local family learned this week after discovering what they determined are tiny freshwater jellyfish in a local lake.

Heather Williams, of Copley, said her daughter Virginia, 9, was swimming at Arrow Lake in Copley on Aug. 26 when the girl saw several of the creatures.

“She said she saw a jellyfish and I said, ‘No, it’s not a jellyfish,’” Heather Williams said. “Then I went to look and it was a jellyfish.”

The jellyfish are less than 1 inch in size, she added.

The mother and daughter scooped up a couple of the jellyfish and took them home, naming them Smuckers and Bubbles.

Heather Williams said when they got home she turned to the Internet to research their find. She found that there are freshwater jellyfish and they have been found in Ohio.

Jamey Graham, of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Akron office, said she has seen the creatures herself while canoeing.

“I wouldn’t say they are uncommon, but they are cool,” she said.

Jim McCormac, a biologist for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources in Columbus, said he hears about freshwater jellyfish a couple of times a year. Their scientific name is craspedacusta sowerbii.

“People are always shocked when they encounter those,” he said. “They’re not a great rarity. I think they get overlooked a lot.”

He said small saltwater jellyfish can sting pretty badly, but he wasn’t familiar with any problems with the small freshwater jellyfish.

“It is a predator of zooplankton, and they catch them with their stinging tentacles,” he said.

Heather Williams said her daughter was so excited about their find that she took the specimens to school with her Aug. 27. She’s a fourth-grade student at Arrowhead Primary School.

“We did not even know these were a possibility here,” Heather Williams said.

She added the jellyfish were still alive as of Aug. 28.

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