I am a microbiologist and molecular biologist turned tenured biotech faculty turned bioinformatics scientist turned entrepreneur. My passion is developing instructional materials for 21st century biology (
DigitalBio RSS feed
A reader from the UK sent me these lovely photos that he took of a jellyfish and asked for my help in identifying it. Unfortunately, while I'm pretty good with bacteria, plants, and tropical fish, my taxonomy skills don't go much farther unless I have a sample of DNA.
These photos were taken at La-Manga off the coast of southern Spain.
My Sciblings have guessed: Rhizostoma, Stomolophus meleagris, or Mastigas
If you know, we'd all appreciate an answer in the comments.
And if you don't know about much jellyfish, RPM at evolgen would like your help answering a different reader's question: When a manatee swims, does it get water up its up nose?
Comments
I'd have to go with Rhizostoma pulmo. The look and the location are right. There's also a similar beastie that hangs around the UK called Rhizostoma octopus.
Posted by: Dave S. | September 13, 2007 12:56 PM
Oh, that's Steve. We met while I was diving a few years back...he's a cool dude.
Posted by: Ben | September 13, 2007 1:20 PM
Definitely a Rhizostoma pulmo. Mediterranean and maybe Atlantic. Good picture on flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arne/198961001/.
It's armless, you can touch it and swim with it.
Posted by: Marco Ferrari | September 13, 2007 1:22 PM
The flicker shot is great! It definitely looks like the same kind of creature.
Posted by: Sandra Porter | September 13, 2007 1:27 PM