The fried egg jellyfish has an average diameter of 16 inches but is usually less than 7 inches wide.

Besides their smooth elevated dome that resembles a fried egg, they have appendages that are usually deep purple in color. The dome has transparent cilia all around it with varying appearances and lengths giving them a layered effect.

The fried egg jellyfish’s sting is mild. To humans, it causes almost no effect unless the person has many allergies, in which case it can cause itching and scratching. Even in the wild, their sting is so benign that young mackerel will hide within the jellyfish tentacles.

They can be found in the cooler waters of the Pacific Ocean such as the Sea of Japan or the Bering Sea. The fried egg jellyfish’s ideal habitat is over deep basins.

The fried egg jellyfish drifts through the water allowing zooplankton, phytoplankton, and small jellyfish to trapped in their many club-like mouth-arms. They will take their prey from there directly to its gastric cavity. Even though the fried egg jellyfish has a gastric cavity, it lacks a circulatory, respiratory, and excretory system; however, it uses its surface area to make up for these tasks.

Fried egg jellyfish reproduce asexually in warm water. After the larvae is released into the water, they will attach themselves onto a hard surface and grow into a polyp colony. The capsules soon hatch revealing baby jellyfish, also known as medusae.

Named for its appearance, the fried egg jellyfish, or egg-yolk jellyfish, is in its own family known as Phacellophoridae. It used to be in the popular Ulmaridae jellyfish family, but the juvenile characteristics were different.

Fried egg jellyfish don’t use their tentacles for swimming but instead use their dome to pulse as they swim though they prefer to remain motionless.