Venus' Girdle

I've said it before and I'll say it again: this Venus woman most certainly adores beautiful things!

This time it's her girdle. What's a girdle? It looks like it was originally some kind of belt, but it grew into a big, corset thing that joined the rest of the scaffolding that encased a woman's body in an incredibly complicated and slightly painful way.

Venus must of course go her own way. Her girdle is transparent and slightly gelatinous. Can there be anything sexier than that? It's also wet so it probably hugs her form like tissue paper on a ceiling. Oh man. That's so hot. We need a nice, big picture so we can examine each and every crease and curve... Here's one.

Anyway! Venus' Girdle isn't really a girdle. It's a stupendous Comb Jelly instead. Quite unlike the relatives, it has become a long, thin ribbon that can be seen close to the surface of tropical and sub-tropical oceans. They can reach up to 1.5 metres (4.9 feet) in length, but they're usually not much more than half that.

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They swim along very slowly, the long way round. That is to say that their front is 1.5 metres long and their sides are about 8 cm (3 in) across. They have the combs, the hair-like cilia that wave to push them through the water, and they are on the back end. 1.5 metres of back end.

Running along a groove on the front are the 2 sticky, branching tentacles that capture tiny, planktonic food and trail back as Venus' Girdle swims. The mouth is in the middle of the front end.

Things change when Venus' Girdle is startled and wants to make a quick getaway. The full length of their body now undulates like a snake such that one of the sides becomes the front and the mouth is on the side. This is great for some extra speed, but I guess it's pretty useless for capturing food. Kind of like me with a trolley in the supermarket. Only sexier. A little.

They're all hermaphrodite, so they just release eggs and sperm into the water and leave them to it. Let me assure you that I don't do that kind of thing in supermarkets at all, trolley or otherwise.