Bank residents of the Spiegelplas in Nederhorst Den Berg are not surprised by the freshwater jellyfish that appeared in the news today. The jellyfish has been living in the pond since the 1980s, says one of them. “I read about it in the newspaper this morning and thought: here comes another story. But it remains fun.”
Koen Hoetmer lives on a side arm of the lake and says that he has seen the freshwater jellyfish for decades: “My children already caught them in the eighties of the last century, it is a beautiful sight”. He points to the large one with his thumb and forefinger, about the size of a two-euro coin.
harmless
The jellyfish are of Chinese origin and normally live as a kind of polyp on the water bottom. Only when the water temperature fluctuates around twenty degrees for a longer period of time do the freshwater jellyfish start swimming around. They are not dangerous, their nettles are not strong enough to pierce human skin. When the water cools down, the jellyfish will disappear again.