Seratis Jellyfish

An invertebrate animal.

Found in the waters of the continental shelves on Roye (Reavers Deep 2511 C79A458-A), the Seratis Jellyfish looks a little like the water-living gelatinous zooplankton on Terra in that they are orb-shaped, transparent soft-bodied creatures. The Seratis is a swimming carnivore/stinger and is found in two forms, the swarming juveniles and the much larger solitary adults. Being transparent these creatures can be extremely difficult to see or detect in the waters of Roye.

• The swarming juveniles are small, usually around 500 grams in weight. With no stingers yet developed their only defence is their near invisibility in water. Found in groups of up to 100 individuals the easiest way to detect them is the disturbance on surface waters they make as they pass through, or the small fish they envelope as prey which look as if they are slowly dissolving in the water.
• The juvenile Seratis are edible and the swarms often fall prey to larger sea creatures. The adult Seratis are much more dangerous, growing up to two meters across and developing a deadly ring of stinging barbs that contain a nerve toxin. To add to the poisonous attack the adult Seratis also develop a thicker outer skin, similar to mesh armour while still being transparent.
• Attempts have been made to produce natural mesh armour out of this skin however it turns brittle once out of water. With the development of the stinging barbs the adult Seratis become inedible and catch their prey by enveloping them and stinging them. The nerve toxin paralyses the prey with death and digestion following over the next half hour. Most divers generally wear mesh plated wetsuits to protect against the adult Seratis.
• Why these predators do not wander off the continental shelves on Roye remains a mystery as they are never found in the deep oceans, either at the surface or deeper levels. The natives of Roye have also tried to harvest the nerve toxin of the adult Seratis but, just like the skin, have found that the toxin breaks down once out Roye's ocean waters. The adults are only ever found together at mating time, which marks the last cycle in the the Seratis lifespan.
• After mating, which involves passing genetic cells between the single sex adults, the Seratis wander off to the feeding grounds. Over the course of a season small buds appear along the bottom of the Seratis, which grow into the juvenile Seratis. This cycle appears to have a detrimental affect of the adult Seratis as it no longer appears to be able to capture prey during the cycle.
• Eventually the adult dies, at which point the juveniles break off the adult and feed on the carcass. After this initial feed the juvenile swarm moves off and the cycle starts again.

Sources

This list of sources was used by the Traveller Wiki Editorial Team and individual contributors to compose this article. Copyrighted material is used under license from Far Future Enterprises or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.

• Paul Sanders, J. Andrew Keith. Reaver's Deep Sector Sourcebook (Cargonaut Press, 1998), 22.
• Brett Kruger. Into the Deep 1 (BKP, 2010), 29.