Jellyfish Nematocyst
A model and short animation showing a jellyfish cnidocyte cell and the nematocyst within it. The nematocyst is a pressurized subcellular organelle that contains a barbed coil. When stimulated, the pressure forces the barb out at a high speed, resulting in the jellyfish's famous sting.
Client: Nicholas Woolridge
Audience: Cellular biology students
Format: Digital animation
Media: Zbrush, Cinema 4D, Adobe After Effects
Date: December 2017
![cnidocyte_2017_still.jpg](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/bcee8b_d738ee863acc4338b36a487c6817560c~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_900,h_506,al_c,q_85,enc_avif,quality_auto/cnidocyte_2017_still.jpg)
Process Work
![cnidocyte_2017_process1.jpg](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/bcee8b_65d92151ebd34458aa00f5af7364e330~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_362,h_362,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/cnidocyte_2017_process1.jpg)
![cnidocyte_2017_process2.jpg](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/bcee8b_97920b7101f24f9e899eecc40b26ac8c~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_552,h_360,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/cnidocyte_2017_process2.jpg)
In-progress model of the barbed tubule within the pressurized nematocyst rendered in Cinema 4D (left) and view of the scene within the cnidocyte in the Cinema 4D viewport (right).
References
-
Babonis, Leslie S., and Mark Q. Martindale. 2014. “Old Cell, New Trick? Cnidocytes as a Model for the Evolution of Novelty.” Integrative and Comparative Biology 54 (4): 714–722. doi:10.1093/icb/icu027.
-
Gavelis, Gregory S., Kevin C. Wakeman, Urban Tillmann, Christina Ripken, Satoshi Mitarai, Maria Herranz, Suat Özbek, Thomas Holstein, Patrick J. Keeling, and Brian S. Leander. 2017. “Microbial Arms Race: Ballistic ‘Nematocysts’ in Dinoflagellates Represent a New Extreme in Organelle Complexity.” Science Advances 3 (3). doi:10.1126/sciadv.1602552.