Word.ws English Dictionary

cassiosome

cassiosome noun: a stinging-cell structure, composed of a layer of mainly nematocytes surrounding a core of dinoflagellates, amoebocytes and mesoglea, expelled within mucus by Rhizostomeae jellyfish to sting (and in some cases kill) prey in the surrounding water.

Noun

cassiosome (plural cassiosomes)

  1. A stinging-cell structure, composed of a layer of mainly nematocytes surrounding a core of dinoflagellates, amoebocytes and mesoglea, expelled within mucus by Rhizostomeae jellyfish to sting (and in some cases kill) prey in the surrounding water.
    • Released within the mucus, we discovered three types of undeployed nematocysts, as well as microscopic, motile, cellular masses composed of nematocytes that we formally call cassiosomes. While cassiosomes bear some resemblance to another cnidarian structure originating in mesenteries of the starlet...2020 February 13, Ames, Cheryl L., Anna ML Klompen, Krishna Badhiwala, Kade Muffett, Abigail J. Reft, Mehr Kumar, Jennie D. Janssen et al., “Cassiosomes are stinging-cell structures in the mucus of...
    • The hagfish produces mucus all over its body when poked. The team investigating the jellyfish grenades found that similar stimuli could provoke Cassiopea to release Cassiosome grenades from some tiny spoon-shaped structures on their arms.2020 June 1, Lauren Sara McKee, “The upside-down jellyfish stings you with mucus grenades”, in Massive Science

Examples of cassiosome in a sentence

  • Released within the mucus, we discovered three types of undeployed nematocysts, as well as microscopic, motile, cellular masses composed of nematocytes that we formally call cassiosomes.2020 February 13, Ames, Cheryl L., Anna ML Klompen, Krishna Badhiwala, Kade Muffett, Abigail J. Reft, Mehr Kumar, Jennie D. Janssen et al....
  • Cassiopea xamachana medusae are known to release large amounts of mucus that contains motile clusters of stinging cells called cassiosomes (Ames et al., 2020).2021 April 13, Ames, Cheryl Lewis, Aki H. Ohdera, Sophie M. Colston, Allen G. Collins, William K. Fitt, André C. Morandini, Jeffrey S....

Forms of cassiosome

pluralcassiosomes

Origin of cassiosome

From Cassio(pea) (a genus of jellyfish) + -some, referring to a genus containing some of the jellyfish found to produce them. Coined 2020 by Cheryl L. Ames, et al., in a paper published in Communications Biology (see quotations below).

Questions about cassiosome

What does cassiosome mean?
Cassiosome means a stinging-cell structure, composed of a layer of mainly nematocytes surrounding a core of dinoflagellates, amoebocytes and mesoglea, expelled within mucus by Rhizostomeae jellyfish to sting (and in some cases kill) prey in the surrounding water.
How do you use cassiosome in a sentence?
Released within the mucus, we discovered three types of undeployed nematocysts, as well as microscopic, motile, cellular masses composed of nematocytes that we formally call cassiosomes.
What part of speech is cassiosome?
Cassiosome is a noun.
What is the plural of cassiosome?
The plural of cassiosome is cassiosomes.

Words near cassiosome in the dictionary

  1. cassiopeids
  2. cassiopeium
  3. cassiopid
  4. cassiopids
  5. cassiopium
  6. cassiosome
  7. cassiosomes
  8. cassiri
  9. cassiris
  10. cassis
  11. cassis liqueur

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cassiosome (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “cassiosome.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cassiosome. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.