Nature & Environment
Eerie 'phantom jellyfish' filmed off the coast of Antarctica
By
T.K. RandallMarch 2, 2023 ·
2 comments
Very few people have ever seen one of these. Image Credit: CC BY 4.0 Antony Gilbert, Viking
A rare and fascinating species of jellyfish has been spotted during recent efforts to explore the seas of the Antarctic Peninsula.
Gliding silently through the frigid depths like a 10-meter-long silk ribbon, this remarkable jellyfish was first discovered all the way back in 1910 and has been seldom seen since.
It is known as
Stygiomedusa gigantea, or the giant phantom jellyfish.
Despite its enormous size (some specimens have been found to measure up to 10 meters in length), it has only been sighted a mere 126 times in over 100 years.
No wonder, then, that images taken of it during a recent expedition have gained so much attention.
"Here, we demonstrate that personal submersibles, now increasingly deployed by the expedition cruise industry, can be vessels of opportunity for biological research in the polar regions," the study authors wrote in the journal
Polar Research.
"We describe direct observations of the rarely encountered scyphozoan
Stygiomedusa gigantea at water depths of 80-280m in Antarctic Peninsula coastal waters as an example of the potential that personal submersibles present for the scientific community, and we outline possible research avenues for utilizing these platforms in the future."
Source:
IFL Science |
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Tags:
Jellyfish, Antarctica
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