What Does “A Brood of Jellyfish” Mean?
“Brood” usually refers to offspring raised together, and applied to jellyfish, it points toward one of the stranger life cycles in the ocean: jellyfish begin as tiny larvae, settle into a polyp stage that can bud off genetically identical young called ephyrae, and only later develop into the free-swimming adults most people picture.
A “brood” likely describes this early stage best, a mass of young jellyfish released together from the same polyp colony, rather than the loosely drifting adult blooms more commonly seen near shorelines.
Example: “A brood of jellyfish drifted just below the surface, barely visible against the pale morning water.”
Other Collective Nouns for Jellyfish
Jellyfish carry an unusually large number of collective nouns, also called a fluther, a jive, a smack, a smuck, a smuth, a stuck, and a swarm. See the full Collective Nouns for Fish list.
A Few Jellyfish Facts
- Jellyfish aren’t technically fish at all; they’re cnidarians, more closely related to coral and sea anemones.
- Jellyfish have no brain, no heart, and no blood; their bodies are roughly 95% water.
- Some jellyfish, like the moon jellyfish, begin life attached to the seafloor as a polyp before ever becoming free-swimming.
Before They Drift Out of Sight…
For an animal without a brain, jellyfish have somehow ended up with more collective nouns than almost anything else in the ocean.