One thing I’ve learned from the Okeanos Explorer’s ROV trip to the Marianas Trench, is that deep sea jellyfish just like to let it all hang out. How else you going to feed effectively if you don’t wave your tentacles around like you just don’t care? But get too close to this unidentified jelly, and you risk triggering its Inspector Gadget quality evasive maneuvers. RETRACT! SWIM AWAY! Live to extend another day. You go jelly, you go.

More awesome videos and photos from this incredible series of dives can be found here.

The post GO GO GADGET JELLYFISH! first appeared on Deep Sea News.

New spectacular video of a enigmatic jellyfish is going viral across the internet (see below).  Although first collected in 1901 and scientifically described in 1910, the giant jellyfish,Stygiomedusa gigantea, is rarely collected or seen.  A paper in 2010 by Mark Benfield and William Graham found that only 110 observations of the species had been made from 1899 to 2009.  However while rare, Stygiomedusa gigantea is found in every ocean except the Arctic.  The lack of this large jelly in the Arctic likely reflects a lack of deep-sea exploration there as opposed to a true absence.

This jelly is likely one of the largest invertebrate predators currently in the ocean.  Current size estimates put the bell diameter around 0.5-0.75 meters (1.6-2.5 feet). The species actually does not have tentacles as we associate with other jellyfish. Instead what you see dangling down are oral lobes which can reach ~10 meters (32.8 feet) in length.  Benfield and Graham found two individuals in the Gulf of Mexico clinging to underwater structures and hypothesized the jelly uses its long oral lobes to hold on to and trap prey.

Although not all fish appear to be simply food for this giant jelly.  Drazen and Robison found that the small fish Thalassobathia pelagica swimming continuously swimming around the bell of Stygiomedusa gigantea. Interestingly, nematocysts of another jelly, the common moon jelly, could sting the fish but it was unharmed by the those of S. gigantea.

The latest video. I’m not sure what is up with the music.

The post Rare Giant Jellyfish Caught on Video first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Over the last few weeks Deepstaria reticulum is again in the news.  Unfortunately, it has surfaced amongst some of the poorest journalism I’ve seen.

The first article that emerged was at the Daily Mail stating that 

The mysterious sea creature was spotted 5,000ft deep in the Gulf of Mexico two years ago, but it has only just been identified by marine biologists. 

Obviously this is wrong because my post, which the Daily Mail links to, is from two years ago where the specimen has been correctly identified. But the richest part is that the Daily Mail reported on this originally two years ago.  So the current Daily Mail post disagrees with the older Daily Mail post.

Of course once misinformation is put up on the internet it spreads like a wild fire.

Aol News

For two years a mysterious sea creature has been captured on video as it swims 5,000 feet below the surface, but scientists have been in the dark as to what exactly it is. Now, the mystery is solved: it is a placental jellyfish — after many arguments and speculations. NBC reports, “They believe it is a rarely seen jellyfish plodding its way, not at great speed, through the Gulf of Mexico. The video was actually shot by an underwater gulf rig camera.” 

The fish’s species was, at first, hard to identify because it appeared to have no eyes, mouth, tentacles, front or back.

 

NPR reports scientists first believed it might be a whale placenta. They ruled that out because it would have been a large target for predators at that depth and likely would have been eaten sooner. Then Deep Sea News Chief Editor Craig McClain noticed the creature had a sex organ similar to a giant jellyfish called Deepstaria enigmatica.

 

Case solved? Not quite.

 

According to the Daily Mail, it was a small detail — the hexagonal pattern on the creature’s skin — that gave strong evidence that this jellyfish is actually a Deepstaria reticulum, or a placental jellyfish.

 

The species is native to Antarctic waters, which are significantly colder than the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists don’t know how or why this particular jellyfish ended up in the Gulf.

 

So there are so many things wrong here I don’t know where to start.  So it’s not a fish.  Scientists never believed it was a whale placenta. Just random people online.   I noted in the original post, 2 years ago, the hexagonal pattern and the species identification.  The last two sentences are just all kinds of wrong.  There is literally nothing correct in those statements. Not a single thing.

SFGate and the Houston Chronicle actually decided to run with the title

After 2 years, scientists confirm mysterious Gulf of Mexico blob is rare jellyfish

So reading into the article

After two years of pondering, marine biologists in the past few days have confirmed that a mysterious pink blob seen on underwater video from the Gulf of Mexico is a big, rare jellyfish known as Deepstaria reticulum, according to The Daily Mail.

My other favorite part of all this is the statement below that keeps circulating as well.

BBC News reports that the Deepstaria Enigmatica is “thought to be one of the largest invertebrate predators in the deep sea ecosystem.”

Wait what?  That’s not right.  The BBC article actually doesn’t discuss Deepstaria what ever but a wholly different jellyfish Stygiomedusa gigantea.  

So nothing in these articles is correct, except the identification of Deepstaria reticulum. Interestingly, not one of these “journalists” have reached out to me for comment.  This is quite frankly lazy and sloppy journalism.  One that will continue to perpetuate.

In celebration of this spectacular cock up here is set of stock photos of a demographic diverse group of people face palming.  All our courtesy of friends at Shutterstock!

The post Jellyfish Journalism Fail first appeared on Deep Sea News.

This past month, these giant black beasties have been spotted back off the coast of California. Though they don’t yet appear to be in the same numbers as seen in 2010, the summer is still young. Likely, they might just be here to celebrate our newest Deepling Rebecca’s arrival…Woot! Woot!

Either way, check out this breathtaking video freediver Chris Thompson snagged last week while adventuring through the Point Loma kelp forest. (For the full effect: Play this simultaneously)

“This beautiful cnidarian looks like a big piece of candy, but probably tastes like a light socket.” -Chris Thompson

Good, not to mention valid, description.

The post Back in Black first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Like many jelly species, members of the group Hydra have a polyp stage that reproduces asexually by budding off little clones, and people have speculated this could last for thousands of years. So Daniel E. Martínez closely watched members of one species, Hydra vulgaris, for 4 years, and in that time very few animals died [3]. Dr. Martínez suggests that since animals that start reproducing only a few days after birth, such as Hydra, tend to kick the bucket earlier than animals that wait, 4 years is a pretty long time. But does that really mean they’re immortal?

More information is needed about Hydra, but it’s not the only species people keep for decades, nor the only species that could help us understand if some jellies may last forever. So, to get to the bottom of this I polled the experts.  I sent emails to some of the top jelly aquarists asking: do polyp clone populations change over time?

Most public aquaria display jellyfish, and to do this they take advantage of the peculiar jelly life cycle.  The life of jellies is broken into two parts: the polyp-type stage, which looks like Hydra and divides asexually, and the jelly stage, which grows from polyps and gets on with the busy act of sexual reproduction. To keep the number of exhibit jellies constant, aquarists use polyps as a literal clone bank, cueing them to produce more jellies as needed.

And do these clone banks ever change or grow old? The answer was a unanimous “yeah, kinda.” According to aquarists at both the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the New England Aquarium, over about six years clonal populations do get “tired.” They become more fragile, don’t produce healthy jellies, and stop responding to environmental signals. Many aquarists replace their polyp stocks with new baby polyps quite regularly, so that none of this fickleness gets in the way of jelly production. The whole colony may continue to kick, but it gets more and more fragile over time. To me, this sounds a lot like aging.

When humans die it’s not because a special gene turns on that shouts: “YOUR TIME IS UP!” Rather, little things start breaking all over, cells stop dividing and those that do accumulate mutations, this is why getting older is often accompanied by all sorts of biological issues. The truth is, accumulating mutations and cell gunk isn’t something special about aging people, even clone lines of E. coli bacteria accumulate harmful cellular products over time [4]. This is just the cost of being alive. So does the “immortal jellyfish” Turritopsis dohrnii really last forever, even with all this gunk slowly working its way into its cells and genomes?

I’m not convinced. Just because you can reverse your life cycle or clone yourself doesn’t mean you’ve got a get out of jail free card for all the consequences that come with being a living thing in the first place. You are still subject to that nasty gunk build up.  Some species like Hydra vulvaris may have evolved ways to clean this gunk and beat the system, but the jury is still out on how, and for how long. While the “immortal” jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii may be able to turn back its life cycle, it may not escape the inevitable slowing down that comes with age. In other words, while reversing your fate and escaping death for a short while may be a neat trick, it doesn’t guarantee immortality.

Work Cited

[1] Stefano Piraino, Ferdinando Boero, Brigitte Aeschbach and Volker Schmid (1996). Reversing the Life Cycle: Medusae Transforming into Polyps and Cell Transdifferentiation in Turritopsis nutricula (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa). Biological Bulletin , Vol. 190, No. 3 (Jun., 1996), pp. 302-312

[2] Stefano Piraino, Ferdinando Boero, Brigitte Aeschbach and Volker Schmid (1996). Reversing the Life Cycle: Medusae Transforming into Polyps and Cell Transdifferentiation in Turritopsis nutricula (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa). Biological Bulletin vol. 190, no. 3  pp 302-312

[3] Martínez DE (1998). Mortality patterns suggest lack of senescence in hydra. Exp Gerontol. vol 33 no 3 pp 217-25.

[4] Ariel B. Lindner, Richard Madden, Alice Demarez, Eric J. Stewart and François Taddei (2008). Asymmetric segregation of protein aggregates is associated with cellular aging and rejuvenation. PNAS vol. 105 no. 8 pp 3076-3081 doi: 10.1073/pnas.0708931105

The post Are Jellyfish Immortal? first appeared on Deep Sea News.

For a cool $125,000, you could be the belle of your next scientific conference ball, strutting in with this gorgeous “Jellyfish clip” attached to your LBD or BCD. Who wouldn’t want to be dripping in 2.97 carats of diamonds?

If shapeless invertebrates aren’t your thing, consider splurging on this “Two-fish clip” ($105,000), featuring 19th-century-inspired paillonné enamel fins:

Or perhaps the “Seahorse Clip”, where diamonds, amethyst, periodot and pink sapphire are nestled within an 18k gold and platinum lattice ($54,000):

And finally, at only $4,500 these diamond and green enamel “Shell ear clips” are are absolute bargain – why, they’re so glamorous they nearly pay for themselves!

The post Undersea jewelry (and sparkling diamonds) from Tiffany & Co. first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Big tip ‘o the hat to @RebeccaRHelm on Twitter for sharing this beautiful video with great music on it. Make sure you stick with the video to about 2/3’s of the way through to see what happens to the jelly!

Video information:

United States Antarctic Program divers, Henry Kaiser and Rob Robbins, both videotape a lovely jellyfish at the Little Razorback Island dive site, near McMurdo Station, Antarctica. A few minutes later the jellyfish drifts too near the bottom and is captured by an anemone.

video created and authorized by Henry Kaiser and Rob Robbins
music created and authorized by Henry Kaiser and Knut Reiersrud

The post Beneath Antarctic Ice: Gelatinous Edition first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The post TGIF – City of Gonads first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) has just posted better footage of Deepstaria,

The scyphomedusa Deepstaria is certainly odd, with its bag-like appearance, and bell that can open more than a meter wide. Speculation on the identity of a mystery blob of has become a YouTube sensation, sparking heated and entertaining debates over its identity. That video of Deepstaria reticulum (described by Larson, et al., in 1988) looks especially unusual because the medusa is being blown around by the thrusters of the Remotely Operated Vehicle, and eventually turns completely inside-out. In this video, we showed some more natural-looking specimens of Deepstaria reticulum and Deepstaria enigmatica, along with other related species from the deep sea

The video is STUNNING.  An expert on everything pelagic, Steve Haddock narrates the video and provides tons of great and interesting information.  Thanks goes to MBARI and Steve for providing more footage and explanation of this gorgeous creature.

The post Better and New Video of the Enigmatic Placental Jellyfish first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The two leading contenders seems to be that it is A) an old whale placenta or B) a rare and enigmatic deep-sea jellyfish.  And the answer is…. B)

A) So why is not an old whale placenta?  The video is from approximately 5000 feet (1500 m). A placenta would need to sink to this depth without any other organism consuming it.  Unlikely given that its rate of decent would have been slow and any organic food source in the deep sea is unlikely to last long.

B) So why is it a jellyfish?* In 1967, F.S. Russell described a very enigmatic deep-sea jellyfish, Deepstaria enigmatica.

During Dive 159 of the U.S. research submersible Deepstar 400 on 22 October 1966 Dr. Eric G. Barham, Dr. George Pickwell, and Mr. Ronald Church collected a remarkable scyphomedusan at a depth of about 723 m in the San Diego Trough…when first noted, the jellyfish’s margin was collapsed and the [outer, convex surface of the umbrella] indented.

In other words it didn’t look like much of a jellyfish.  Sound familiar?

On opposite sides of the umbrella are two large tubular shaped processes…It has a yellowish brown tinge…The radial canal system is most striking.  It consists of a meshwork, likened by Dr. Barham to wire-netting.

The gonads are situated along the margins of fan-shape mesenteries, and tend to be broken up into several isolated processes with incurved edges.

In 1988 Larson and colleagues published further work describing this rare group of jellyfish.  They too noted the unique canal system.

But it is these researcher’s behavioral notes that I find most interesting.

These two species of Deepstaria display some unique behaviour; peristaltic locomotion and pursing of the bell margin are unknown in other medusae. Probably the peristaltic locomotion is necessary because the umbrella is too thin and the subumbrella musculature too diffuse to support more rapid pulsation. Our observations of both species of Deepstaria suggest that they usually hang  motionless with the umbrella open…It seems probable to us that medusae in this genus are large ambush predators in the meso- and bathypelagic environment…we speculate that the feeding behaviour might be as follows. The medusae usually hang vertically and motionless with the bell open; occasional peristaltic contractions probably enable them to swim slowly, at least enough to retard sinking. Because the area of the subumbrella is so large, upward-swimming prey occasionally would swim into it. Once prey enter the large subumbrellar chamber, the contact stimulates rapid contraction of the coronal muscle, pursing the umbrella shut and trapping the prey. As the prey attempts to escape, it contacts nematocysts on the subumbrella, being repeatedly stung until weakened. It may additionally become covered with mucus and further immobilized. Then peristalsis and ciliary movement could transport the prey towards the mouth where the oral arms could grasp and engulf it…’Bagging’ prey in this way is not known in other medusae.

Russell, F. S. (1967). “On a remarkable new scyphomedusan Deepstaria enigmatica”. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the UK 47: 469-473.

Larson, R.; Madin L., Harbison, G. (1988). “In situ observations of deep water medusae of the genus Deepstaria, with a description of D. reticulum sp. nov.”. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the UK 68: 689-699.

*UPDATE: This has now also been confirmed by Dr. Steven Haddock of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Center, an expert on deep-sea and pelagic creatures.

UPDATE2: Steven Haddock provides some much better photos of Deepstaria engimatica on the Jellyfish Watch Facebook page.

UPDATE3: Several comments below suggest the species is Deepstaria reticulum.  Important thing is that it is still a jellyfish and already known.

The post Solving the Mystery of the Placental Jellyfish first appeared on Deep Sea News.