Comb Jelly

Ctenophores

Description:

Commonly known as Comb Jelly, Ctenophores are mostly translucent/transparent, able to retract and expand their body and emits out lights as it swim through the water column. Saw quite a lot of them during a dive, quite large in size, mostly around 15 cm when retracted (Pic#3) and when it opens up as in Pic#2, it looks like a space ship (Empire's Tie Fighter in Star Wars) with 'wing-span' of around 30 cm. The bioluminescence lights they emits can sometimes be captured in neon colour under flash, as in Pic#1

Notes:

Read more about them and their interesting evolutionary history here : http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...

Species ID Suggestions

6 Comments

AlbertKang 6 years ago

Thanks, @Daniele for another SOTD :)

Thanks too, @Muckpuk, @Hema and @Jhan-Curt Fernandez for your kind words and support :)

DanielePralong 6 years ago

Congratulations Albert, this awesome comb jelly series is our Spotting of the Day!

"How beautiful is that? This ghostly, transparent Comb Jelly (Phylum: Ctenophora) is our Spotting of the Day! Comb jellies or ctenophores are free-living marine organisms made of eight comb rows of cilia used for propelling the animal through water. Ctenophores actually are the largest animals that swim by means of cilia. A beautiful characteristic of ctenophores is the light-scattering produced by the beating of cilia, which creates a changing rainbow running down the comb rows as the animals swims. Many ctenophores are also bioluminescent, but this can only be seen in darkness or captured under flash as seen here in green. The phylogenetic position of ctenophores is an active area of research which is relevant to the understanding of the early evolution of animals and their nervous systems.
Learn more here: http://buff.ly/2ro3iQC"

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/projectnoah/pho...

Twitter:
https://twitter.com/projectnoah/status/8...