In what sounded like a pretty clever April Fools' prank, the Florida Aquarium announced Monday it would soon unveil an interactive attraction allowing guests to pet jellyfish.

Turns out it's no joke. Moon Bay, a new "touch experience" at the aquarium, will open just in time for the summer season, spokeswoman Sandra Morrison said.

The 2,000-gallon habitat in the aquarium lobby will have two separate areas where translucent moon jellies, named for their moonlike circular bells, can be touched by visitors.

The obvious question: Won't that hurt?

Moon jellies, like most jellies, do have venomous nematocysts, the harpoon-like structures triggered by touch that sometimes cause a painful sting, senior biologist Laura Wandel said, but since moon jellies feed on very tiny zooplankton, their nematocysts are similarly tiny and typically won't pierce human skin.

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Not only that, but aquarium visitors will be instructed on the proper way to touch a moon jelly, on top of its bell and at the surface of the water, where there aren't any nematocysts or stinging risks anyway.

Wandel added that there are more than a dozen species of moon jellies worldwide, inhabiting everything from cold, arctic waters to the warm Gulf of Mexico. Unseasonably large jelly blooms have been linked to global warming and are becoming more common, she said.

And don't call them "jellyfish." Moon jellies are technically a form of gelatinous zooplankton and not fish at all.

The exhibit will also include a digitally-mapped projection wall above the tanks, as the jellies glow with the illumination of changing colored lights and "drift gracefully through the water."

In a news release, aquarium president and CEO Roger Germann said the new exhibit will "undoubtedly change the perceptions of these amazing animals" and inspire guests to care about every animal in the ocean, "including jellies."

Contact Christopher Spata at cspata@tampabay.com or follow @SpataTimes on Twitter.