Common Name: Australian spotted jellyfish, White-spotted jellyfish
Scientific Name: Phyllorhiza punctata
Common Name: Australian spotted jellyfish, White-spotted jellyfish
Scientific Name: Phyllorhiza punctata
Common Name: Australian spotted jellyfish, White-spotted jellyfish
Scientific Name: Phyllorhiza punctata
Native to the southwestern Pacific, where it feeds primarily on zooplankton. P. punctata average 45-50 cm in bell diameter but there had been a maximum reported size of 62 cm. However, in October, 2007, one 72 cm. wide, perhaps the largest ever recorded, was found on Sunset Beach, NC. In July 2007 smaller ones were seen in Bogue Sound much further north along the North Carolina Coast. They have only a mild venom and are not considered a threat to humans. 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 13,200 gallons of sea water per day. While doing that, it ingests the plankton that native species need.
Common Name: Black Sea Nettle
Scientific Name: Chrysaora achlyos
Common Name: Black Sea Nettle
Scientific Name: Chrysaora achlyos
Natural History
The black sea nettle is considered a giant jelly; its distinctive purplish bell can reach over three feet (91 cm) in diameter; its lacy, pinkish oral-arms can reach nearly 20 feet (6 m) in length and its stinging tentacles 25 feet (7.6 m) or more. It probably lives in deeper, calmer waters but has appeared in large blooms in California coastal waters, most recently in 2010.
Conservation
Giant black sea nettles appeared in droves along the San Diego shoreline in the summer of 1989. Then they mysteriously disappeared. The giant drifters reappeared again ten years later, in the summer of 1999. Increased numbers of sea nettles may be an indication that human activities have changed the condition of the ocean. Increased organic material means more nutrients. More nutrients, plus fertilizers from farms, enrich the plankton, providing more food for jellies and allowing them to increase in number.It is likely that the appearance of black sea nettles in coastal California waters is also related to El Nino/La Nina events.
Cool Facts
The black sea nettle provides the Pacific butterfish with food and protection. The silvery butterfish feeds on the plankton gathered by the jelly, and when danger approaches, the butterfish actually hides inside the jelly’s bell.
The black sea nettle is a mysterious creature; during most years its whereabouts are unknown. Scientists just recently named this jelly in 1997, although pictures of the species were taken as early as 1926. Much about its behavior, distribution and life cycle remain a puzzle.
Common Name: Black Sea Nettle
Scientific Name: Chrysaora achlyos
The Black Sea nettle is a giant jellyfish with a bell as big as 3 feet across and oral arms as long as 20 feet. They are found in Pacific Ocean waters and are carnivorous, eating larvae, plankton and even other jellyfish.
Sometimes known as the “black jellyfish” due to its dark coloration, is a species of jellyfish that can be found in the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Its range is thought to be from Monterey Bay in the north, down to southern Baja California and Mexico, though there are reports of sightings as far north as British Columbia. It is a giant jellyfish, with its bell measuring up to 1 m (3 ft) in size, and its oral arms extending up to 6 m (20 ft) in length. Despite its size and occasional proximity to Pacific coastal cities, the Black sea nettle was only recognized and scientifically described as a separate species in 1997, though misidentified pictures of the jellyfish had been taken in 1925. It has the scientific distinction of being the largest invertebrate discovered in the twentieth century.
While sightings have been rare, when they are seen it is often as part of a massive swarm of the creatures, such as those that occurred in surface waters off the coast of Baja California and southern California in 1989, 1999 & 2010. Interestingly, these sightings seem to coincide with incidents of red tides, which consist of the zooplankton that Black sea nettles feed upon.
The sea nettle is radially symmetrical, marine, and carnivorous. Its mouth is located at the center of one end of the body, which opens to a gastrovascular cavity that is used for digestion. It has tentacles that surround the mouth to capture food. Nettles have no excretory or respiratory organs.
Diplulmaris antarctica from offshore of McMurdo Station, Ross Island.
Jellyfish species Diplulmaris Antarctica floats with the current just offshore of McMurdo Station, Ross Island, Antarctica. This species is generally found in Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula near the surface in continental shelf waters. It’s colorless umbrella can be up to 18 centimeters in diameter and its diet consists mainly of copepods, euphausiid larvae, medusae, ctenophores, fish larvae and molluscan pteropods.
The Antarctic waters are teeming with species of fish and other sea creatures like urchins, brittle stars and sea stars, jellyfish and sponges, worms and spiders, krill and shrimp, as well as marine mammals and penguins, to name a few.
The National Science Foundation runs the U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP). In addition to maintaining three U.S. research stations on the continent, USAP supports research projects in an array of scientific disciplines, including for example, aeronomy and astrophysics, biology and medicine, geology and geophysics, glaciology, and ocean and climate systems. Outreach, such as the Antarctic Artists and Writers program, and education programs are also supported. For more information about USAP, visit the program’s website Here. (Date of Image: December 2005)
Credit: Steve Clabuesch, National Science Foundation
Not quite a jellyfish, this gorgeous creature is commonly known as the Blue Button. It lives on the surface of the ocean and consists of two parts, the hard golden brown float and the hydroid colonies that resemble jellyfish tentacles. It does belong to the same phylum as jellyfish and is often mistaken for one.
Porpita porpita has a small disc like body and floats freely in the water column. Related to the jellyfish, this species measures just one inch in diameter. Image courtesy of Islands in the Stream 2002 Exploration, NOAA-OE.
The deep-sea scyphozoan jellyfish, Atolla wyvillei, as seen under white light. Image courtesy of Edith A. Widder, Operation Deep Scope 2005 Exploration, NOAA-OE.
