Jellyfish always much greater than the Lion's Mane, whose bell diameter can reach . The rarely encountered deep-sea jellyfish "Stygiomedusa gigantea" is another candidate for "largest jellyfish", with its thick, massive bell up to wide, and four thick, "strap-like" oral arms extending up to in length, very different from the typical fine, threadlike tentacles that rim the umbrella of more-typical-looking jellyfish, including the Lion's Mane. Jellyfish have a complex life cycle which includes both sexual and asexual phases, with the medusa being the sexual stage in most instances. Sperm fertilize eggs, which develop into larval planulae, become polyps, bud into ephyrae
Lion's mane jellyfish shore. Like other jellyfish, lion's manes are capable of both sexual reproduction in the medusa stage and asexual reproduction in the polyp stage. Lion's mane jellyfish have four different stages in their year-long lifespan: a larval stage, a polyp stage, an ephyrae stage, and the medusa stage. The female jellyfish carries its fertilized eggs in its tentacle, where the eggs grow into larva. When the larva are old enough, the female deposits them on a hard surface, where the larva soon grow into polyps. The polyps begin to reproduce asexually, creating stacks of small creatures called ephyrae. The individual ephyrae