Although Montoya and Christie’s creation may end up serving a purpose, they admit that they made the peanut butter jellyfish “simply to see if it could be done.”
So how did they do it?
They used some 250 young Aurelia aurita and placed an ordinary fishbowl on a water table with recirculating artificial seawater. A solution of 45ml creamy peanut butter was emulsified in 300ml seawater using a blender.
The young jellies were fed 2ml of the emulsified peanut butter solution twice daily for a period of 5 weeks.
The moon jellies increased in size after “8 days of peanutbutterification,” Montoya and Christie wrote.
“Throughout this period it was noted that jellies that had recently fed displayed a distinct brownish hue owing to their high degree of peanutbutterocity.”
The authors reached a fairly delicious conclusion after the experiment. “Moon jellies have seen a storied past,” Montoya and Christie wrote. “They have delighted children at aquaria worldwide, captivated researchers with their elegant simplicity and functionality, and even traveled into space but we feel that becoming one with peanut butter helps them fulfill their ultimate destiny as a species -- to become peanut butter and jellyfish!”
[Drum and Croaker] [Deep Sea News]
