#4919 · 🪼 jellyfish, starfish, worms & co
Lion's Mane Jelly
🇳🇱 Gele haarkwal ·Cyanea capillata
8 photos from iNaturalist (Creative Commons) · credits & licences
what is it?
The lion's mane jellyfish ( Cyanea capillata ), also known as the giant jellyfish or the hair jelly , is the largest known species of jellyfish. Its range is confined to cold, boreal waters of the Arctic, northern Atlantic, and northern Pacific Oceans. It is common in the English Channel, Irish Sea, North Sea and in western Scandinavian waters south to Kattegat and Øresund. It may also drift in to the south-western part of the Baltic Sea (where it...
base stats
Bars compare against all animals on log scales: up to 300,000 Dutch and 600,000 worldwide sightings (the most-seen species), 150 t (blue whale), 30 m and 400 years (Greenland shark).
fun facts
- Spotted 11 times in the Netherlands on iNaturalist.
- 5,751 observations worldwide on iNaturalist.
- Scientifically named in 1758 (268 years ago).
fact sheet
- English
- Lion's Mane Jelly
- Nederlands
- Gele haarkwal
- scientific name
- Cyanea capillata
- class
- Scyphozoa
- order
- Semaeostomeae
- family
- Cyaneidae
- sightings in NL
- 11
- sightings in Europe
- 4,314
- sightings worldwide
- 5,751
- GBIF records in NL
- 942
- weight
- —
- length
- —
- lifespan
- —
- named
- 1758
relatives· Cyaneidae
Sources: iNaturalist taxon 69838, Wikidata Q522939, GBIF 2264478, Wikipedia (EN), Wikipedia (NL). Intro text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.