Rare giant red jellyfish snuggles up to ocean expedition cam
It rocks the name "Stygiomedusa gigantea."
The research crew aboard the Exploration Vessel Nautilus has seen quite a few strange and wonderful sights under the sea. One of the latest is an ROV camera encounter with a large undulating sea creature.
The Nautilus team posted footage to Twitter on Wednesday from an expedition in the Pacific Ocean earlier this week. It shows a very big red jellyfish, believed to be a rare Stygiomedusa gigantea.
What do we see as we move through the midwater? Earlier this week, the team had a close encounter with a large red jelly, thought to be a rarely-seen Stygiomedusa gigantea.
— E/V Nautilus (@EVNautilus) July 25, 2018
Our ROVs are now headed down to 2200m--watch the "blue water" with us: https://t.co/zhUi3dQOeD pic.twitter.com/kRUaxtT2za
The jellyfish's appearance in front of the camera elicits some "wow" responses from the marine researchers monitoring the live video feed. They joke about having to clean the submersible after its encounter with the gelatinous animal.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute featured the elusive Stygiomedusa gigantea in a 2015 video, calling it "one of the largest invertebrate predators known in the ocean." Its arms can reach nearly 33 feet (10 meters) in length.
The Nautilus, a project funded by the non-profit Ocean Exploration Trust, has been busy lately. It was part of a NASA effort to recover meteorite pieces from the ocean floor earlier this month. It's also famous for introducing us to a googly-eyed squid and a mysterious purple orb in 2016.
The jellyfish video is one more intriguing example of the wonders hiding out beneath the waves.
