I have a lot of respect for jellyfish.
Jellyfish are fossils. Let’s not discuss how this kind of fossil remains. The jellyfish is obviously a bag of water, and it is not easy to leave a fossil. The oldest jellyfish fossils are said to be 500 million years old.
Crucially, jellyfish were jellyfish hundreds of millions of years before we humans were born – jellyfish in ancient times looked the same as they do now. If there is something that is eternal in the world, it must be the form of jellyfish.
Seeing this, some people may say: “The same shape has been maintained for hundreds of millions of years, without any growth!” Over millions of years, our ancestors have achieved dramatic evolution, and their lifestyles and body shapes have also changed. The environment has changed dramatically.
However, “no change” is actually a pretty remarkable thing. It stands to reason that the environment around the jellyfish must have changed dramatically. Trilobites are extinct, plesiosaurs are rampant, and the construction boom of Ryugu City (the palace of the sea god in the legend of the sea god spread all over Japan) is in full swing… The ocean has gone through a history of ups and downs. Organisms that could not adapt to the change died out, while others overcame the difficulties through the evolution of appearance.
Only the jellyfish remained steadfast and maintained its original form. This means that at the very beginning, their form is already perfect. Sharks and turtles also evolved similar forms to extant species during the Mesozoic. In the ever-changing world, “change” seems to be the only rule of survival, but for those creatures who have achieved perfect form, it is true to respond to all changes with the same.
The sight of jellyfish lazily adrift in the open ocean is bound to bring contempt to one’s mind. However, there is the meaning and determination of “not evolving” in that expression of wanting nothing.
