Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico. The P. punctata prefer warm temperate seas and aggregate in waters near coastlines. Their nutrition comes primarily from zooplankton. The process of consumption is by filtration. Fluid flows over clusters of mouthlets near the base of the oral arm disk in the centre of the cylinder. The feeding process is continuous since the jellyfish must be swimming in order to move the prey to different mouthlets so they can be digested. Reproduction in P. punctata is unique. In the initial stage of life – the polyp stage – the polyp is asexual. It reproduces by multiplying itself various times; creating a larger hatch than the original the mother had created. The next stage – the medusa stage – is when the jellyfish becomes sexually reproductive. The male shoots his sperm into the water and the female collects the sperm in her mouthlets and filter them to her reproductive organs. There they grow into polyps where they are eventually dropped to the bottom of the ocean where they grow and begin to reproduce on their own. Invasive species The species has been found in the waters off the Hawaiian Islands since at least 1945, in the Mediterranean Sea since at least 1965, and in large numbers in the Gulf of Mexico since 2000. In the eastern Pacific, it has been sighted in the San Diego area and the Gulf of California as early as 1981. While it is not known how it was introduced to these regions, it has been theorized that budding polyps may have attached themselves to ships, or were carried in a ship's ballast tank which was subsequently dumped. As an invasive species, it has become a threat to several species of shrimp. In Gulf waters, the medusae grow to unusually large size, upwards of across. In July 2007, smallish individuals were seen in Bogue Sound much further north along the North Carolina coast. However, their ability to consume plankton and the eggs and larvae of important fish species is cause for concern. Each jellyfish can filter as much as of seawater per day. While doing that, it ingests the plankton that native species need. In North America and Hawaii, its non-native locations are the following: Northern Gulf of Mexico, Southern California, Greater Antilles, Florida, and the Hawaiian Islands. They are also threatening large fishing industries because of their consumption of eggs