Permethrin Poisoning in Cats
As we approach summertime in North America, many cat owners turn to flea prevention products to keep their furry friends safe from pesky parasites. However, there's one toxic ingredient that could turn your best intentions into a nightmare: permethrin. In this episode, we will dive into everything you need to know about permethrin toxicity in cats, including where it may be hiding, how to avoid it and more.
This toxic medicine is one of the most common causes of feline poisoning worldwide, and it can be life-threatening, even in tiny doses. What's worse is that many caring cat owners unwittingly put their pets in harm's way by using dog flea spot-on products that contain permethrin, not realizing the deadly consequences. I'll show you how to keep your feline friend safe by understanding where permethrin may be hiding, why dog flea treatments should never be used on cats and how to recognize and treat permethrin poisoning if it strikes.
What You’ll Learn:
Why we should never use dog flea spot treatment on cats.
Where permethrin actually comes from.
What permethrin does to cats.
How cats get diagnosed with permethrin poisoning.
The most common clinical signs in cats.
How to treat permethrin toxicity.
The importance of buying products that are for cats only.
How to avoid accidentally poisoning your cats with permethrin.
Ideas Worth Sharing:
“Permetherin toxicity usually happens a couple of hours after putting on the flea prevention, but it can be delayed up to 72 hours. So it’s really important to take a picture of the flea prevention that you put on so that your veterinarian can know what it was and effectively treat permethrin poisoning if that’s what it is.” - Tyler Sugerman
“There is no true antidote to permethrin poisoning, so your veterinarian is going to have to treat your cat symptomatically.” - Tyler Sugerman
“If you think you have just put flea treatment on your cat that is permethrin, bathe them immediately in Dawn dish soap or some other really mild soap and then get them to the veterinarian hospital as quickly as possible.” - Tyler Sugerman
Resources Mentioned:
Read The Transcript:
Welcome to Vetsplanation. I'm your veterinary host, Tyler, or you can call me Suggs. This podcast is about educating pet parents about what is going on with their furry little loved ones. As an emergency veterinarian, I understand how hard it is to explain complex diseases in terms that are understandable for pet parents in a few short minutes before the next critical case comes in.
In this podcast, we can dive deeper into understanding of what our pets are going through and break down those complex medical terms into easier to understand chunks of information.
Just a quick disclaimer: this podcast is for informational purposes only. This is not meant to be a diagnosis of your pet. If you have questions about diagnostics or treatment options, please talk to your veterinarian about those things.
Remember, we are all practicing veterinary medicine, and medicine is not an exact science. Your veterinarian may have different treatment options. The information I provide here is to help pet parents, and it's not related to my place of work. I'm here for you guys to provide free information and knowledge.
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Now, let's jump into this week's episode.
Tyler Sugerman: Hey guys, welcome back to Vetsplanation. So, today, we're going to be talking about an interesting toxicity. I feel like this is really good for our summer months that are coming up. We're starting to get into a season where it's going to become hotter and we're going to have a lot of cats that are going to need flea prevention.
And so, I wanted to talk about this very specific toxicity in cats that we see. So, it's called permethrin toxicity, but it's very specific to certain types of flea medications. So, there are lots of different types of flea medications that have different types of flea preventions.
So, whatever the chemical is, there can be lots of different types of those. So, this one is specific to permethrins, and we'll talk about some of the brands that have permethrins in them. But just in general, most of these are going to be labeled for dogs only.
Some of them are going to be really tricky about their labeling, and it's going to be like teeny tiny labels rather than it being a big really obvious label. But in any case, we want to look for those labels really carefully to see if it says if it's just for dogs only. Because if so, we need to really adhere to that and make sure it's not on cats at all.
These usually contain really high doses or high amounts of permethrins, usually about 45 to 65%. You're going to find some that are really low. I think that there was one that was only like 10% and they don't usually cause as much of a toxicity, but we don't really know the dosage of those.
And then the other interesting thing is that permethrins are not just for flea preventions or for tick preventions, they're also used for things like agriculture and also, in household insecticides. So again, we just need to be looking at labels really carefully to see if permethrins might be in those.
So, let's talk about what are permethrins. This is just a really weird word. So, you have to bear me with me for a second. We needed to figure out where permethrins came from the first place.
So, permethrins actually came from pyrethrins. It was found in these flowers, so they actually found them in dried chrysanthemum flowers, they found seeds in other flowers. But they found that these pyrethrins were really good insecticides. So, they would keep away ticks and mosquitoes and ants and fleas.
And so, they were using these and lots of other things as well. They were using them on crops and stuff, but now, we wanted to try to help make something that's more sustainable, easier to make rather than growing all these flowers, and then use that for other purposes. So, using that on animals.
So, the synthetic form of that or essentially, the man-made form of pyrethrins are called permethrins and that is what we see in a lot of our insecticides today. There are these permethrins, so it just means that we've made this in a laboratory to mimic what the pyrethrins which are the natural supplement does in the wild.
So, why do these permethrins have negative effects? The interesting thing is that in most mammals it is very safe. They're able to take the flea medication, not have any issues. But the animals that it does affect are going to be things like insects and also, cats.
Cats are really prone to having permethrin toxicities. And you would think that dogs and cats are so similar, there really shouldn't be a reason why we would have this difference. We'll kind of get into that in just a minute as to why we think that these cats are having a permethrin toxicity.
So, how are these cats getting into permethrins? Well, one way is that people put them on them, they put on these flea preventions that have permethrins not knowing that this is a problem. So, a lot of times, you'll see like — the most common thing I see in the clinic is that somebody will give somebody else a flea prevention.
They're like, “Oh hey, my dog passed away, I have this extra flea prevention. Why don't you take it, you can just split it up on your cat.” Well, when we do that, if it's specifically made for dogs, like a lot of times on that little tube, it's not going to say permethrins on it. And so, you’re not going to have any idea.
Sometimes, it'll have little things that'll say not for cats on it. That's ideal, that'd be great if it says not for cats, so hopefully, you can see that and be like, “Oh, I can't use this on my cat.”
But it's not always going to be on the tube. It might be on the packaging, it might be on the box, but your friend might not have given you the box or given you the packaging, so you have no idea that you're not supposed to use this on your cat.
It can also be that people have put it on purposefully. So, it says, for dogs, but they don't know that the actual chemical in there is really something that's harmful for cats. So, they're like, “Well, I'm just going to split this so that I can give more to my cats and still have some leftover.”
So, sometimes they're purposely put on there not to harm the cat obviously, but just because you just didn't know. And then another interesting way is that when the cat has been playing with a dog, they recently had it applied. So, permethrins can come in a pill that they eat but it can also be like this topical that just goes on the back of their neck or between their shoulder blades.
And if you have a cat that's super lovey with a dog and they're wrestling, they're grooming each other, or even if they're just laying side by side with each other, if the cat is exposed to that, that can cause them to have a permethrin toxicity as well.
And then the last thing that people don't really think about very often is going to be people who spray their clothes to prevent a lot of tick bites and stuff, you'll spray your clothes with permethrins or even for mosquito repellents, some of those have permethrins in it.
So, if you spray your clothes and let's say you take your clothes off, put it on the bed and the cat comes over, lays on your clothes, that's another exposure to permethrins that could cause them to have this toxicity.
So, let's talk about what exactly do permethrins do? How is the toxin created? What does it do? So, with these toxins, that's a neurotoxin meaning it's something to do with the nerves or the brain that this toxin's going to work on.
So, the best way I can describe this is that the easy form of this is that this toxin causes them to have really bad tremors and seizures and could be much worse, unfortunately they could die from this. But the kind of the longer answer is that there are these sodium channels in your nerves and the sodium channels open up and they tell your nerve to tell your body to do something.
So, let's say … like the best way I describe this is that if we had Toysrus still, but I think that it's opening back up again. But this Toysrus used to be a big thing and people wanted the best toys around Christmas time.
They wanted to get the newest, hottest thing so people would line up, masses amounts of people would line up at Toysrus waiting for those doors to open. So, all those people are the little sodiums, they're all waiting to get into Toysrus to buy whatever the newest toy was.
Tickle me Elmo I think was the most popular one they ever had. But they're all waiting to go in there to buy this toy. So, the doors are closed, we cannot let any sodium in, but when now we will need our nerve to do something, the sodium channel is open and all of those sodium rush in until the doors close again.
So, when all of those sodium runs in, it's actually called depolarization and then when the door is closed, now we have a repolarization, we're stopping everybody from going. We're saying, “Hey nerve, don't fire anymore,” and we stop all the sodium from coming back in. Until the next time we need the nerve to do something, we open back up those doors, all the sodium rushes in again.
When those sodium rush in, again it makes the nerve want to do something. Usually our nerves are attached to things like our muscles. So, if we need our muscles to move, we have our nerve that tells our muscle to then move. So, sodium comes in, tells our nerve to tell the muscle to move, muscle moves. Now, that is a very simplified version of when — but I think it's kind of easier to understand that way.
But let's say we have something blocking those doors — the doors open allows sodium to move and now, I put something there, I jam the door. Now, none of those doors can close and the sodium can just come rushing in. So, all those people who want Tickle me Elmo are just bombarding the store just have this huge influx of people in the store over capacity.
Our nerves are going to continue to fire over and over and over and over again. And so, you see these cats who are tremoring, they're twitching really badly, they'll have seizures from this, and that's because their nerves they're just continuously firing. They don't know what to do at this point until we can close those doors again.
So, there's also other things that this can affect too. There's calcium channels and all sorts of other things, but the main one is going to be our sodium that it affects.
So, in a flea … fleas have a little bit of a different anatomy and physiology since they're insects than our cats do. But in general, it will cause them to be pretty restless, they'll be really wobbly, they can be paralyzed and then they die.
Just so you know, some people will say that their dog is really itchy or cat is really itchy after they get flea medication, and they're like, “Well, it doesn't work because they're really itchy still.” But most of the time that's actually those fleas dying off.
So, some other types of flea medications, they'll have seizures and this flea medication, they're just restless, so they're moving around a lot. And so, it seems like they're really itchy and they still have a lot of fleas, but that really is the process of the flea dying off.
So, a lot of times, they'll be itchy for maybe the first 24 hours, maybe even up to 72 hours. And then after that, they're usually not itchy again because all those fleas have died off at that point. But just so you know, that can potentially happen.
But also now, we know that with fleas it's going to cause them to be restless, wobbly, paralyzed, and then die. So, why does it affect our cats and not our dogs then? Cats are not like fleas, cats are more like dogs, they're mammals. Why does it affect them and not our dogs?
So, this is an interesting thing. First thing you need to know is that when we're giving them these permethrins, the chemical loves fat so it's going to want to go where the fat is. The nice thing about these in dogs is that usually, the permethrins are ingested, they're broken down really quickly and then they're just excreted out of the body. They’re just urinating them out.
It's usually not a big deal and by the time it's broken down, it doesn't cause the toxicity in our dogs. Now one of the pathways in order to break down these permethrins is called glucuronidation. It's not going to be super important, just you know that there's some weird pathway that breaks down these toxins.
So, cats cannot do that, they have a deficiency in this enzyme to break things down. So, cats will eventually break it down but it's going to be a lot slower because it has to go through other pathways in order to break it down.
One of the big things that we always wondered was why is it that the cat only has these toxicity signs for 24 to 72 hours, but the flea prevention is supposed to last for a month. So, if the flea prevention is in the cat for a month, why is it able to break down or how is it able to break down and not only last for a couple of days?
Well, that's because we know that there are other pathways that break it down. But one of the pathways that's a big one is going to be through glucuronidation. So, if we don't have that pathway, it breaks down a lot slower, but it will break down, that's the main thing. It will eventually break down.
So, unlike fleas, fleas do not have this pathway or other pathways to break it down, they're unable to do that. And so, now, we have fleas that die and cats that just have this toxicity.
We don't know how much is really a lethal dose for cats. It's really hard to tell, it kind of really depends on so many different factors. So, there’s no real number. So, I can't tell you if you put three tubes on, then that's going to lead to death. There's just not really a number known at this point.
Now, what are the clinical signs? So, the most common clinical signs, it's usually going to start out with drool really excessively, we call that hypersalivation. They may be really nervous from loud noises or a lot of people if you put your hand in front of them really fast, they freak out a little bit and jump back. They really don't like loud noises.
So, dogs barking and stuff are really freaked about, they'll have really big pupils. So, if you look at the black part of their eye, you'll see it's really big, so it becomes really big pupils on both sides. They'll have tremors. So, a lot of times it'll start in their ears. You'll just see twitching of their ears or it'll start right above their eyebrow or they're just twitching that eyebrow. And then eventually, it starts becoming full body tremors.
So, their muscles are just constantly moving. You'll kind of see their belly and stuff jump first and then just their whole body is moving. It's not quite a seizure at that point, but you really see that the cat is really uncomfortable because they are with it, they know what's going on, but they don't know why they're tremoring.
They'll become really hot. So, hyperthermia meaning they become really hot because of the fact that one, they don't get rid of heat very well but also ,because their muscles are moving so fast. Think about when you're doing exercise, your muscles are moving really quickly, and your heart rate is up and a lot of times, it’s going to cause you to be sweating.
For cats again, they can’t get rid of that heat very efficiently and so instead their body temperature goes up. They’ll also have seizures and then possibly even go into a coma because of so many different factors, but a lot of it can be because of brain swelling.
Other things they can potentially see are going to be things like some wobbliness of them. You might even see them just breathing really fast, and some of these patients can actually become hypothermic, meaning that their temperature drops really low. These are not common things but things that can't potentially be seen.
And then this usually happens a couple hours after putting on the flea prevention, but some of them can be delayed up to 72 hours, so up to three days after putting the flea prevention on. So, it's really important if you don't know what the flea prevention was that you put on, that you take a picture of it, get it from the trash can, something if it was within that first three days so that we know what it was and know if this was a permethrin toxicity.
Because even if we're looking at pictures or something to be able to know what drugs are in there. And then these signs can last for about two to three days just kind of depending on how bad they are.
Now the diagnosis of this, a lot of this is due to the history, like you guys telling us that you had given flea prevention from a friend and you didn't know what it was, and now, two hours later, the cat is tremoring or you say well, I bought this from online, I thought it was okay for cats, I put it on my cat and now, the next day, the cat is tremoring.
The history for us is going to be the most important thing because if I can see a grease spot, I'm going to ask you about it and what kind of flea prevention it was. But if there's no grease spot, like let's say the cat rubbed up against the dog who had the flea prevention, there's really not going to be a lot of grease on there.
Or let's say you went hiking the day before and you put your clothes out, and the cat rubbed on it. I'm going to ask for those kind of things to see if that might be why the cat's showing these clinical signs. Otherwise, we're just basing it on the clinical signs like what does that cat look like? Is it having those tremors? Is it having seizures? Is it drooling excessively? We're just looking for those kinds of things.
Unfortunately, there's no quick blood tests that we can do to say yes this is a permethrin toxicity. There are hair tests that you can do. You can pull hair and send it out to a lab. That's going to take days even to a week sometimes though. And by that time, hopefully, we've already treated for the problem.
So, I said history is going to be the number one. If you guys tell us that there is a chance that it could have gotten into a certain flea prevention, then that's the best way of knowing for us how to treat this.
The problem with just going off the clinical sings is there are so many other different things that can cause a lot of these clinical signs as well. You can have snail bait, you can have certain human medications like the amphetamines which I've done in a previous podcast.
You could have rodenticides or rat bait, you could have that the cat got into some compost outside, you can get that the cats ate a cigarette so that nicotine, it can be from lead toxicity, from a brain problem, traumas, seizures from epilepsy, low blood glucose, low calcium.
So, as you can see there are a lot of things that this could potentially be. So, if we have all of these differentials that we have to get through, it's much easier if we just already know that it could have potentially gotten into the flea control.
But again, we don't always know. Like you didn't know that the cat rubbed up on the neighbor's dog who just had flea prevention put on, those are going to be hard situations.
So, how do we treat these guys?
So, when we have our cats that come in and we need to treat them, the first problem is, is that there's no true antidote to this. So, it’s usually just treating them symptomatically.
And you'll find this for a lot of medications, drugs, toxins, there's usually not a specific antidote for a lot of these things. A lot of these things, we just have to treat their symptoms and then wait for their body to get rid of whatever the toxin is.
So, it depends on how bad the cat is as to what we do. So, let's say the cat's just tremoring a little bit, we have the ears twitching a little bit but it's not having seizures yet. A lot of times the first thing that we'll do is bathe the cat.
And I usually tell people too if they call in and they're like, “I just put flea prevention on my cat, what should I do? I feel like it has permethrins in it.” I tell them to bathe the cat immediately with Dawn Dish Soap.
Dawn Dish Soap is great because it strips off a lot of that stuff that's on the fur, like that's greasy stuff sticks on the fur, so you want to strip all of that off. But it's also really mild so it's not going to be something that burns them or hurts them.
So, you don't have Dawn Dish Soap, then I usually just suggest some other really mild soap. Usually, dish soaps are a really good one, but just something that's not going to have a lot of alcohol in it or things that are not going to have a lot of sense in it because some cats are really sensitive to sense as well.
And then we might have a whole another problem on our hand. But usually, bathe the cat in Dawn Dish Soap, wrap the cat in a towel and get them down to the hospital immediately. The reason why is because we don't know how bad this is going to get.
Even if you started to wash them with a Dawn Dish Soap it could get much worse. So, if you've brought them in and haven't done that, that's the first thing that I'm going to do. Have my technicians immediately wash them with Dawn Dish Soap.
And then the next thing is if they did have a patch that was put on the fur, so if they had the topical one that you put it on and you put it between the neck or between the shoulder blades or something, I'm going to shave that spot so that way we're not absorbing more through the fur because I want to try to get as much off of there as possible.
And then if they're doing good after that, then a lot of times it's putting it in an IV catheter and we start treating them with other things. So, one is I need those muscles to relax. So, we're usually giving them a muscle relaxer, it's called Robaxin is the most common name that people know it by, especially if you've hurt your back before then you know about Robaxin, it relaxes your muscles. The other name for that is methocarbamol.
But ideally, we're trying to do that to help stop those tremors. Again, it's not going to fix the problem, we're just trying to help those symptoms until the cat can get it out of its own system. So, muscle relaxers are great because it helps just calm their muscles down. Sometimes people will give things to try to help stop seizures.
So, if they're having seizures, it might be giving seizure medications to try to help stop those seizures or even sedation. So, putting them under anesthesia when they're really bad so that way we can get their brain to stop firing. Now, again this just depends on how bad they really are.
And then putting them on IV fluids, so we're doing that for two reasons. One, we're trying to help cool them down, but also because we're trying to help correct their dehydration. At this point, imagine again, like you've been running and you've not been drinking any water because you're trembling, at this point — you're going to get really dehydrated. So, we need to correct that by putting them on fluids.
And then there's also a really cool study that had been put out in 2022, that showed that you could use something called intralipid therapy. So, it's literally putting these fat molecules inside their blood vessels and it draws out that toxin into the bloodstream so it doesn't go into the nerves and we're not causing this firing over and over and over again.
So, we're unjamming those doors so that the doors can close to Toysrus, and the sodium stops moving in there, or the crazy people who are trying to get Tickle me Elmo or stop trying to get in until we're ready for the next batch of people to come in.
So, it unjams those doors, makes it to where we don't have that toxin affecting the nerves then. And then with these guys, they're usually hospitalized for roughly about 24 hours, maybe even more depending again how bad it is. If they get to that point that they've been there for 24 hours and still having a lot of these tremors, then sometimes, it means that we have to help support them nutritionally.
So, we'll put in a feeding tube or something to try to help them or syringe feeding them to try to help them. If they get to a point where they stop eating, especially for these larger cats, they can get something called hepatic lipidosis, we'll get to that in some other podcast. It's really depth like in-depth involved, but really just knowing that it's something that could be detrimental to them as well. So, we're trying to just try to help those things and just help support the cat until we can get them home.
There are a couple of really cool things that I had found like something I didn't even know about, is called the International Cat Care Campaign. So, it started this awareness for this permethrin toxicity so that people would be aware of it and hopefully, can prevent it.
One of the things was trying to make sure you buy flea prevention that's for cats or for cats only if you have cats in the household, so that that way, we're not giving them anything that's potentially going to be toxic to them.
Another thing is going to be making sure that when they buy online, that you see on there that it says it's for cats only or that you can look at the active ingredient because a lot of them don't list them and sometimes those warnings that say for dogs only, you can't see them because they're really tiny. Again, sometimes they're going to do that, they're going to make it really tiny, it's on the package but it's really small.
So, looking for those things and then you're never using a dog product on a cat. You don't know if it has the permethrins in it so it's better just not to use the dog products on them at all. Especially because you can't really usually get the dosing correctly for them.
And then if you have both dogs and cats in the household like I do, treating the dog and then having the cat be away from the dogs for about 72 hours. So, if you want to use a product that has permethrin, just keep the dog away from the cat for 72 hours.
But the other thing you could do is just choose one that's for cats or meant for cats and dogs and not one that's going to be harmful to cats. I don't know of any products that are going to be for cats only that are going to be harmful for dogs at least.
Again, I am an emergency vet, not a general practitioner so that is not my forte. I'm really good at fixing the problem of the toxicities not giving the flea medication to give to you, so just keep that in mind.
So, there might be one out there that is toxic to dogs that I don't know about yet. But now, we're going to get to the point of what are some of the flea and tick preventions that have this in it. So, some of them are off name brands and there's no way that I'm going to be able to know them. They're going to be sold online, on whatever websites and I'm not going to know them.
So, I picked some of the ones that are known brands that have them. And most of these are really good about saying for dogs only, so you can then make sure that you've getting them for the correct pet, either for the dog or for the cat.
But some of those other ones that are off brand ones, they may not say it or they may have it in really tiny writing that says for dogs only or do not put on cats. So, the one that I see the most that I think they do a really great job on their packaging is K9 Advantix.
They'll usually put on there like it says K9, but it also has on the box, it has multiple things that say like “Do not put on cats, for dogs only.” They have a picture of a cat that has a line through it saying, “Don't put this on cats,” it's on the packaging where you actually pull everything out on there. I can't remember if it's actually on the tubes or not. I feel like it is, but I can't remember for sure.
But it's everywhere, it's all over that packaging so that you don't use it on cats. There is Vectra 3D. They usually will have permethrin in it, Activyl Tick Plus, and then Sergeants and some hearts products which are usually ones that are sold over-the-counter just at the normal pet store. Those ones will have permethrin in it as well.
And the last time I looked at a Sergeant's one, I think that it had the little symbol on it that said “Do not put on cats” but I don't remember 100% for sure. Again, most of the time they just tell me what it is and then I'll know if it has a permethrin in it. Usually, I don't get the packages for these.
And then other people have asked me like are there any pyrethrins that are not toxic to animals or toxic to cats specifically? And the interesting thing is that yes, there actually are some pyrethrins that are not harmful to cats.
So, the Seresto collar, it's actually made out of something called flumethrin, which is a type of pyrethrin that is not harmful to cats. So, you'll see those Seresto collars, but again, you got to make sure you get the Seresto collar, that’s like the true Seresto collars.
They had a problem with some people who were making Seresto collars that weren't really Seresto collars, they were like a knockoff and selling them and they weren't flumethrin, it was pyrethrin that was being put on them, because they literally were taking a collar and spraying it with pyrethrins, not flumethrin.
The other one is called Etofenprox. I don't know that one very well, I don't know which products have that in it, but apparently, that's another one that's appropriate for cats that they're well-tolerated.
So, I'm just going to review really quickly because I know there was a lot of information like what do we do if you have a cat that you put flea prevention on for a dog? So, if that happens, one thing, you can bathe them at home immediately with Dawn Dish Soap, but then also bring them immediately to the vet clinic so that way we can decide if they're going to need to be hospitalized.
Sometimes if you've brushed it all off really fast, we don't see any tremors, we might just say, “Hey look, just monitor them at home, they might do great.” But we don't want them to get to that point to where they become so bad that they're in a coma.
So, we want to help prevent that before that happens. So, the best way to do that is going to be that we hospitalize them, we're putting them on fluids, we're giving them medication to try to help stop the tremors and the seizures, and then sending them home when those tremors are even just like very mild.
Sometimes, I'll just send people home with the medication in the tablet form, and then have them just give it at home if needed. But most of the time, most of those tremors are over by the time we've sent them home.
And then also, just trying to do things to avoid putting these flea preventions on them in the first place. Try to make sure we do ones that just that don't say dog only trying to make sure that we are reading labels really well, because again, you can have a lot of these ones that are just over the counter ones or ones online that are not good for cats.
So, we want to make sure it doesn't say permethrins in it. And then also being aware of things that you put on your agricultural stuff, on your body, on your clothes to make sure that they don't have permethrins if you have a cat in your household as well.
Alright, so that is my permethrin toxicity talk for you guys. I'm just going to do my animal facts real quick here.
So, I chose jellyfish as my animal this week. Jellyfish are crazy cool. So, there are so many things about jellyfish, I couldn't even go over all of it.
So, I just kind of picked some of the really cool things about jellyfish that I just don't think are really well known most of the time. I love reading all of those things at the aquarium that talk about all the different jellyfish, but a lot of times it's a lot of just about that specific jellyfish and not just about jellyfish in general.
So, I just picked some really cool facts about them. So, first thing is that they're made of 95% water. It's like mostly water, like that's not a lot of substance other than water. They're really simple organisms.
So, they usually don't have a brain or a heart or lungs, except for one jellyfish. The box jellies that they have multiple eyes all across, so about 24 eyes all across their bell. And so, if they go around their bell, they actually will be able to see like 360 degrees. Super cool.
Some of the jellyfish, they only live for a couple of hours. So, those really tiny jellyfish, they might live for only a couple of hours versus some of the big jellyfish can live for a couple of years. You have some jellyfish that can even reverse time, isn't that crazy?
Alright, I'm going to botch this name, but it's a turritopsis dohrii? I think it's a dohrnii. They're known as like the immortal jellyfish. So, essentially, let's say they're starved or injured or they're in a really hot area or cold area, they can drop down to the floor and become a polyp.
So, a polyp is what they actually started from. It's like this giant tube thing. Well, some of them are really tiny, but these tubes and the jellyfish kind of like grow on it, like a bud of flowers and then spring off and go fly off and become a jellyfish.
So, they can essentially go back to a polyp and then come back as a normal jellyfish. So, they're just like immortal, they can just keep doing this over and over again. And then the other super cool thing about jellyfish is that they've been around for more than 500 million years.
So, that is 250 million more years than when the first dinosaur was found. And the crazy thing too is that because they're made out of mostly water (I just told you 95% water) is that there's really not a lot of jellyfish fossils. They’re really rare.
And so, the oldest one that I had found was, I think it was in Idaho if I remember correctly and it was 505-million-years old. Like it just went all the way down to that layer of earth. And so, they could figure out like how old these jellyfish were but you could see a very clear imprint of what that jellyfish looked like.
Alright, that's my fun animal facts for today, I hope that you guys found this informative. As always, let me know if you have any questions. You can find me at vetsplanationpodcast.com.
You can email me at suggs@vetsplanationpodcast.com. Find me on social media, and I'm always happy to do any topics that you ask for. If you have any questions about things, I'm always happy to answer those things. Alright, thanks guys.
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