Island Lake Resident Discovers Freshwater Jellyfish

ISLAND LAKE, Minn. — Being at the cabin in Northern Minnesota, you can expect all sorts of wildlife. You can find, deer, fish, racoons and eagles. But what about freshwater jellyfish? This rare sighting is one that Island Lake cabin owner Stephanie Nixon did not expect.

What started as a calm day at the cabin, turned into something more exciting.

“The weather has been so nice; we were actually heading out for a swim. And I looked in the water and saw what appeared to be a jellyfish. It moved like a jellyfish. And my family said, this is island lake, its fresh water, we don’t have jellyfish here,” said Nixon.

Nixon was pretty confident in her findings despite what her family had to say.

“It just didn’t make sense. Was it a clump of eggs, is it, and when we saw multiple of them and we’re able to visualize them, and take pictures and video tape, they were clearly jellyfish. It was about the size of a penny, and we looked around and there were dozens of them. And because we haven’t heard of jellyfish being in the area before, and we were worried about invasive species, I contacted the DNR,” explained Nixon.

Don Eaton, an Aquatic Invertebrate Biologist at the DNR, was just surprised as Nixon’s family.

“Stephanie Nixon, who lives up close to Duluth, sent in some photos and some videos and a short description of a jellyfish. Of a freshwater jellyfish. Which I personally have not seen. I’ve heard about from other folks. Because they do just kind of appear sporadically out of the blue,” said Eaton.

That being said, with the excitement, followed feelings of uncertainty.

“He also reassured me that they weren’t eating fish eggs or causing damage to general ecology. And really eating more microscopic things that, this was a life cycle phase,” said Nixon.

According to Eaton, the jellyfish are not a threat to humans.

“They are not at all dangerous. The jellyfish are related to marine jellyfish. They are in a whole different class of organisms. And they do have little stinging cells which they use to predate small, microscopic zooplankton. And things like water fleas. And things which are naturally microscopic organisms floating around in the water. The stinging cells which they use do not at all affect humans or even fish,” explained Eaton.

Eaton says that the freshwater jellyfish are invasive but have stuck around in areas like mine pits since the early 1900s. And from the sounds of it, they aren’t going away anytime soon.

“This particular one, is it originates in the Yangtze River basin in China. But probably was moved around like the 1900s, to Europe, North America and other continents,” said Eaton.

With all this in mind, Eaton is hoping to remind people to be mindful of harmful invasive species like zebra mussels. And to clean and inspect boats to reduce the spread. But for now, everyone involved is excited about this safe, and unique discovery.

“My kids were just thrilled. They were so excited. The only time they’ve really seen jellyfish is at the aquarium. And to actually see them at our home it was pretty special,” beamed Nixon.

“It’s just gratifying knowing that there are folks out they’re kind of keeping an eye on the environment. You know our job at the DNR is to protect natural resources. And mine is to monitor and hopefully preserve conditions. That freshwater invertebrates and other freshwater aquatic life continue to do well in our lakes,” said Eaton.