Optimal hash arrangement of tentacles in jellyfish

At first glance, the trailing tentacles of a jellyfish appear to be randomly arranged. However, close examination of medusae has revealed that the arrangement and developmental order of the tentacles obey a mathematical rule. Here, we show that medusa jellyfish adopt the best strategy to achieve the...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Okabe, Takuya, Yoshimura, Jin
Format: Online
Language:English
Published: Nature Publishing Group 2016
Online Access:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4895151/
Description
Summary:At first glance, the trailing tentacles of a jellyfish appear to be randomly arranged. However, close examination of medusae has revealed that the arrangement and developmental order of the tentacles obey a mathematical rule. Here, we show that medusa jellyfish adopt the best strategy to achieve the most uniform distribution of a variable number of tentacles. The observed order of tentacles is a real-world example of an optimal hashing algorithm known as Fibonacci hashing in computer science.