Join me in the cold, dark, life-sustaining NE Pacific Ocean to discover the great beauty, mystery and fragility hidden there.

Posts from the ‘Jellies’ category

The rarest of the rare? Haliclystus californiensis in British Columbia? 

[Last updated on November 3, 2025.

Can a 2 cm stalked jelly make you feel small? Yes.
Can it fill you with awe, wonder, affirmation, purpose, and drive? Yes.
Does it make it feel like all the immersion, the cold, and the learning from this little bit of the planet, somehow makes a positive difference? In a quiet voice, I say . . . yes.

It has been confirmed by Claudia Mills that I have the identification of this stalked jelly correct as Haliclystus californiensis. Note that:

  • It has only been recognized as a distinct species in 2010 (Kahn et al., 2010). At the time of that publication, only 10 individuals had been found and only “from southern to northern California in coastal waters” (hence the species name “californiensis“).
  • There are only two other known sightings in British Columbia. One in 2017 as a result of a collaboration including the Smithsonian Institution’s Marine Global Earth Observatory and the Hakai Institute. Additionally, I learned from Claudia Mills that one was sighted near Bamfield by Ron Larson in October 1983.
  • This would be only the 25th global documentation to be included on the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, which, since the research of Kahn et al. in 2010, includes findings of the species in Sweden and Denmark. Note that there is doubt about whether the individuals documented in the Atlantic are indeed the same species.



Are they deep-dwelling? No. In the research I reference above, it is stated that they are known from depths of 10 to 30 metres. I found this one at about 6 metres depth.

What are stalked jellies? They never become free-swimming, bell-shaped medusae like other jellies. They attach by their sticky stalk and have 8 arms with pom-pom-like clusters of tentacles at the ends. These tentacles have stinging cells to catch small crustaceans, which are then moved to the mouth at the centre of the 8 arms. If detached, stalked jellies can grip a surface with their tentacles and quickly reattach their stalk.

Above image from Kahn et al., 2010. Their description includes: martini glass shaped; 2.1 cm tall; 15.5 mm wide; 8 arms with 60 to 80 capitate secondary tentacles, and the red structures are gonadal sacs.



How did I find this one? There was fortuitousness involved. But also, I was looking when many would not. I was looking because of what I have been able to learn previously.

The sighting was on October 30, 2025, when diving with a group I organized to go to God’s Pocket Resort. It was our last dive of the trip and the last dive for the God’s Pocket Team for 2025. It had already been an astounding morning, which included documenting Humpbacks and Bigg’s Killer Whales while on the boat. Captain Bryan had been considering another dive site in Browning Pass, but the current and the potential for him to get more opportunistic whale IDs (with telephoto lens) while we were diving, led him to choose this location.

We had dived this site earlier in the week, and then too I had rushed to the “end” where I know there is a little patch of Eelgrass. I was looking for another species of Haliclystus I have found there before, for which a species name has NOT been assigned. This does not mean in any way that I discovered it, but rather that researchers have not yet published the research describing how it is morphologically and genetically distinct. See photo below.

This is the unnamed / undescribed species of Oval-anchored Stalked Jelly I have found at this site previously (and in a multitude of other locations around northeastern Vancouver Island).


I reached the Eelgrass bed and watched a school of Tubesnout (fish) swim around. Then, I focused on the Eelgrass to see if, maybe this time, I could find the undescribed species. Later, my photos would reveal just how intent I had been. See below for a photo of the school of fish with the flipper of a mature Steller Sea Lion in the frame. I had noticed he had passed so close to me. Yes, I can find 2 cm stalked jellies, and miss a ~3 m, 1,000 kg Steller Sea Lion.


And then, there it was. My brain started screaming immediately, knowing this was a unique species. Does it matter? It does to me. And maybe, it does to you.

May this add to wonder, appreciation, and the appropriate humility that we humans know so little about even the marine species that live in the shallows. May that foster care, and actions that benefit all of us connected by water and air on this ocean planet.

Photo gives you a better sense of how small this species is.

Sources:

Photos above and below: Divers and crew on my October 2025 trip with God’s Pocket Resort.

Twelve Minutes With a Giant

In April, there were quite a few Egg Yolk Jellies around northeast Vancouver Island. I dedicated one dive to trying to find at least one and watch it for a while. You never know what you’ll learn from a species that has survived on Earth for ~500 million years.

Egg Yolk Jellies are also known as Fried Egg Jellies. Gee, I wonder how this species got their common names? 😉 Their scientific name is Phacellophora camtschatica.

They are big at up to 60 cm across the bell. But that’s no where near as big as the other common giant jelly species off our coast, the Lion’s Mane Jelly. They can be 2.5 m across the bell (the bigger Lion’s Mane Jellies are usually not near the coast).

The yellow centres in Egg Yolk Jellies are the gonads. They can be much lighter coloured than the individuals you see here. Egg Yolk Jellies have 16 large lobes that alternate with much smaller lobe-like structures giving the bell a scalloped edge. Each lobe has clusters of up to 25 tentacles making for up to 400 tentacles (25 x 16) and they can be 6 metres long.

Egg Yolk Jelly and dive buddy Linnea Flostrand on a previous dive. ©Jackie Hildering.

I was more than 30 minutes into the dive when I saw the white, slow pulsing through the soup of plankton. The jelly was swimming in my direction. I swam toward the jelly.

For twelve minutes, I watched, photographed, and learned.

I saw how the tentacles became longer and that the jelly stopped pulsing. Motionless in the water column, the tentacles spread out like a net. See that in the series of photos below?

I don’t think there was a “catch” (they feed on zooplankton, including ctenophores and other jellies). Had there been, the tentacles with the prey would have moved toward the jelly’s mouth.

I now have a much better appreciation for how they are not “passively planktonic”. They are active swimmers responding to cues in the environment. Moriarty et al., 2012 used acoustic transmitters to tag them and noted differences in swimming speed and vertical migration dependent on time of day and tidal cycle.

Jellies have sensory structures called rhopalia.

From Rebecca Helm, 2018:
Each ropalium . . . is packed with microscopic crystals at its tip. These crystals help the jelly sense up and down, by bending in the direction of gravity, similar to our inner ear. They also have a small pigment spot, which likely helps the jelly sense basic light and dark. So far, we’ve got an animal that can tell which way it’s pointing in space, and see rough light and shadow. Next we’ve got a few mystery structures, like the little bonnet-like structure surrounding the rhopalium above, which may act like a jelly nose, helping it sense chemicals in the water . . . Each rhopalium also acts like a pacemaker, helping coordinate jelly movement, similar to the way our cerebellum coordinates ours.”

And you thought they were just “going with the flow”. 💙

All photos in the above series are of the same individual.
April 19, 2025 north of Port Hardy in the Traditional Territories of the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw (the Kwak̕wala-speaking Peoples). ©Jackie Hildering.

For more information about the diversity of jellies on our coast, see my previous blog post “Gob Smacked” at this link. From that blog:

Lion’s Mane Jellies and Egg Yolk Jellies. are the only two common jelly species in our waters that can create a sting that irritates human skin, even when the jellies are dead. The stinging cells (nematocysts) work even when the jelly is dead or you get a severed tentacle drifting by your face. The sting from a Lion’s Mane Jelly is reported to be worst than that of an Egg Yolk Jelly.

I’ve been stung by both and clearly it’s not been enough to deter me from striving to get photos of them. But if you have far more skin exposed or are a fisher grabbing nets with many of the tentacles wrapped in them, it is reported to be very uncomfortable.

The solution to the irritation is vinegar (acid), meat tenderizer (enzyme) and I know that many fishers swear by Pacific canned milk as well. Research puts forward that vinegar is the only real solution and that urine does not work at all.

Sources:

Generalized lifecycle of a jelly from Lucas, 2001 via “A Snail’s Odyssey”.
There is alternation between a polyp with asexual reproduction and a medusa with sexual reproduction.
I have not been able to find specifics about the lifespan of Egg Yolk Jellies other than “species can have a lifespan of several years.” I have questions about why we saw quite a few dead on the ocean bottom around the same time in different locations, and what that may suggest about the lifecycle.
Dead Egg Yolk Jelly in April 2025 with dive buddy, Brenda Irving. ©Jackie Hildering.

NatGeo Fail

[Positive update November 12: NatGeo has taken the video down from Instagram and Facebook. But, still has it on their YouTube Channel.]

Whoa!
Astoundingly and disconcertingly inaccurate!

This video is from National Geographic. The added text is mine. The first time they used the video was 5 years ago for “Alaska’s Deadliest on National Geographic TV”. NatGeo Wild posted the sensationalized and inaccurate video again on November 3, 2023 to their audiences of millions of people.


They are evidently not “encumbered” by the lack of logic and truth, despite the feedback of many. They knew how incorrect it was 5 years ago, chose to use it again, and are not heeding any of the concerns. I have provided feedback on their social media posts and am providing it here too in the hopes of countering the misinformation and holding NatGeo accountable for accuracy. They have the responsibility not to create, and perpetuate, sensationalized nonsense.

Is this worth the effort especially with so much else going on in the world? For me, it’s clearly yes. Putting this kind of illogical, inaccurate information into the world especially when perceived as an educational giant is NOT okay. It feeds the atrophying of truth, science and facts.

Deep, deep sigh.

The feedback I provided NatGeo Wild about the video:

“This content is astoundingly inaccurate. Reflect on the reality that salmon eggs are laid in freshwater, on the bottom. These jelly species do not feed on the bottom and are almost always in the ocean, not freshwater.

The eggs you say are salmon eggs being eaten by the Moon Jelly are her own fertilized eggs! In Moon Jellies, when the male releases sperm, the pulsing action of the female Moon Jelly brings the sperm in contact with the eggs under her oral arms and are brooded there.

My photo below shows a female Moon Jelly with fertilized eggs under their oral arms. The eggs she are brooding are brighter white. See them?

Female Moon Jelly brooding fertilized eggs.



Moon jellies are Aurelia labiata, maximum size is 40 cm across. 

NatGeo social media posts with this video are:
Instagram – www.instagram.com/p/CzMDQk4i3oB/ [Now taken down]
Facebook – www.facebook.com/reel/3685193188394528 [Now taken down]
Email – feedback@nationalgeographic.ca
Original YouTube post with the video – www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sO3XJY1hro





Gob-Smacked!

Otherworldly. One-worldly!
While on a recent trip to God’s Pocket Resort north of Port Hardy, it happened to be that there was a huge aggregation of jellies. It was truly awe-inspiring to be diving amid this galaxy of jellies.

Black Rockfish, Bull Kelp and a smack of jellies.
Aggregating Anemones and jellies.


The collective noun for jellies actually is a “smack”, not a galaxy.

A smack of this magnitude is the result of the jellies’ lifecycle and big tidal exchanges concentrating them. We were certainly gob-smacked by the number and diversity as we watched them cascade past in the current as the plankton they are, pulsing to feed on smaller plankton.

The astounding photo above was taken by dive buddy Melissa Foo. It’s me in the smack, appearing to be in a globe of jellies.

And this photo of me was taken by dive buddy Janice Crook. I am including it anticipating that there will be questions about if we were stung by the jellies. We were not. Only the stinging cells of the large jelly species off our coast lead to human discomfort. Later in this blog, I show photos of those big jelly species.


The majority of the jellies in the smack were Water Jellies and Cross Jellies.

Cross Jellies, as the name suggests, have a cross on their bell. They are Mitrocoma cellularia to 10.5 cm across.

Cross Jellies reflected against the surface, trees above the surface.


Water Jellies are a group of jellies that have little lines all around the outside of the bell that look like the spokes of a wheel. The little white part hanging down from the bell is the mouth (manubrium). Aequorea species are up to 17.5 cm across.

Cross Jelly with manubrium.


There were also Moon Jellies. Moon Jellies are easy to discern because they have a clover shape on their bell which is their 4 gonads / sex organs. Aurelia labiata are up to 40 cm across. 

The following photo shows a Moon Jelly female with fertilized eggs. The eggs are the less translucent white structures. 


The biggest jelly species I saw were Lion’s Mane Jellies and Egg Yolk Jellies.

The Lion’s Main Jelly is the biggest jelly species in the world. Cyanea ferruginea can be 2.5 m across with 8 clusters of 70 to 150 tentacles which can be up to 36 m long! Know that the larger individuals of this species tend to be further offshore and that they can retract their tentacles.

Lion’s Mane Jelly reflected against the surface.
Lion’s Mane Jelly with dive buddies’ bubbles in the background.


The Egg Yolk or Fried Egg Jelly is Phacellophora camtschatica and can be 60 cm across. They have 16 large lobes that alternate with small lobes giving the bell of the jelly as scalloped edge. Each of the 16 lobes has clusters of up to 25 tentacles which can be 6 metres long.

The individuals I saw on these dives happened to be white with light yellow. They part that looks like the yolk of an egg is often darker yellow.

Egg Yolk Jelly – see it’s prey in these two photos? It has caught other jelly species in its tentacles.


Lion’s Mane Jellies and Egg Yolk Jellies. are the only two common jelly species in our waters that can create a sting that irritates human skin, even when the jellies are dead. The stinging cells (nematocysts) work even when the jelly is dead or you get a severed tentacle drifting by your face. The sting from a Lion’s Mane Jelly is reported to be worst than that of an Egg Yolk Jelly.

I’ve been stung by both and clearly it’s not been enough to deter me from striving to get photos of them. But if you have far more skin exposed or are a fisher grabbing nets with many of the tentacles wrapped in them, it is reported to be very uncomfortable.

The solution to the irritation is vinegar (acid), meat tenderizer (enzyme) and I know that many fishers swear by Pacific canned milk as well. Research puts forward that vinegar is the only real solution and that urine does not work at all.

Egg Yolk Jelly and trees.


There were also various species of sea gooseberry / comb jellies in the smack. These elongate jellies open up at one end and engulf their prey. Comb jellies move by cilia which are arranged like teeth on a comb. These cilia cause light to scatter whereby you can see rainbow-like flashes over the animals. This is not bioluminescence as the light is not created by the jellies.

Comb Jellies belong to the Ctenophora phylum while the other species referenced on this blog are in the Cnidarian phylum.

Comb Jelly on the bottom right (Beroe  species to 10 cm long).
Orange-tipped Sea Gooseberry (Leucothea pulchra) – Comb jelly species to 25 cm long.

Below there are more photos of the smack. All photos were taken between October 15 to October 19, 2023 in Browning Pass north of Port Hardy, Territory of the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw (the Kwak̕wala-speaking Peoples) ©Jackie Hildering.

Dive buddy Janice Crook.
Dive buddy Melissa Foo.
Tail segment of a Giant Siphonophore.

A Smack of Jellies

The last little while there have been hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of Moon Jellies = a “smack” of them. That truly is the collective noun for jellyfish.

It should also be the collective noun for the number of jellyfish photos I am delivering in this blog.

May these photos from my last dives north of Port Hardy offer you a bit of escape. I tried to capture trees in photos of jellies and the reflection of the jellies against the surface of the water. I hope the images communicate interconnectedness of land, sea and sky. May  they also contribute to understanding and connection to our neighbours in the sea.

Moon Jellies are easy to discern from other jelly species by having the clover shape which is 4 gonads / sex organs (Aurelia labiata to 40 cm across). 

Most jellies in the class to which Moon Jellies belong (the Scyphozoan) release eggs and sperm into the water column. But in Moon Jellies, when the male releases sperm, the pulsing action of the female Moon Jelly brings the sperm in contact with the eggs under her arms and the are brooded there. The following three photos show females with eggs. The eggs are the less translucent white structures. 

And as if this was not all amazing enough there was also a ” blizzard* of babies . . . just LOOK at how many juvenile Widow Rockfish there are!

It was so extraordinary to see them nipping at the bells of the Moon Jellies, darting about everywhere. There was another phenomenal explosion of young like this in 2016 and, with site fidelity being so strong, those fish may well be the bigger ones we saw at these sites too.

The following facts about Widow Rockfish are from Dr. Milton Love’s brilliant “The Rockfish of the NE Pacific”: The mothers produce one brood of about 95,000 to 1,113,000 eggs/year which hatch as larva from their mothers (rockfish are viviparous). They stay in the plankton for about 5 months feeding on copepods and krill and can grow up to 0.61 mm/day. Then they settle out to be in nearshore areas like you see here and feed on salps and jellies, small fishes, crabs, amphipods and krill.

Why are they named “Widow” Rockfish ? “. From Dr. Love’s book too: Julius Phillips, a great observer of the rockfish fisheries of California during the mid-twentieth century, believed the term widow can about because the “black peritoneum an small effeminate mouth give the impression of lonesomeness to occasional specimens that appear amount the more common bocaccios, chilipepper and yellowtail rock cods” (Phillips, 1939).

Maximum  life expectancy for Widow Rockfish (Sebastes entomelas) is 69 years. Maximum length 60 cm. Females typically bigger than males.

The bounty of babies has been reported by myself and others to those monitoring rockfish health. To my knowledge, nobody knows why there have been these two explosions of young of this species (2016 and 2020).

And to conclude, I had hoped that I might also photograph a Lions Mane Jelly with land in the background. On the last dive of nine, the light and life lined up to allow me to take this photograph.

The Lion’s Many Jelly is one of two of the biggest jelly species commonly found off our coast = Cyanea ferruginea (the other is the Egg Yolk Jelly). Maximum size of Lion’s Mane Jellies is to 2.5 m across with 8 clusters of 70 to 150 tentacles which can be . . . 36 m long! This is the largest jelly species in the world. Know that the larger ones tend to be further offshore and that they can retract their tentacles. These two species are also the only two common jelly species in our waters that can create a sting that irritates human skin, even when the jellies are dead or you get a severed tentacle drifting by your face.

A Lion’s Mane Jelly is the murderer in a Sherlock Holmes short story entitled “Adventure of the Lion’s Mane” (I kid you not), BUT the “victim” had a preexisting heart condition. The solution to the irritation is vinegar (acid), meat tenderizer (enzyme) and I know that many fishers swear by Pacific canned milk. Research at this link puts forward that vinegar is the only real solution. Clearly I’ve never been stung badly enough to deter trying to photograph them.

Photo below is of planktonic me after a full dive trying to capture jellies and trees in the same image. Photo by dive buddy Janice Crook.

In a Galaxy Far, Far Away . . .

 

 

In a galaxy far, far away . . .

Oh wait no, this was yesterday, diving in a soup of Red Eye-Medusa.

Imagine the water thick with plankton to the extent that it actually feels soupy, and throughout, these jellies are suspended . . . like little, living fairy lights in the dark.

When the visibility is poor like this, it of course limits what else can be seen. But, when you’re in the dark, that’s where you are and that’s where there is still much learning to be done and beauty to be seen.

Yep = life metaphor.

Polyorchis penicillatus are up to 10 cm in size and they are “sink fishing” when hanging like this (detail below).

Look at the bottom of the bell for the red “eyes” (eyespots / ocelli). These can sense light intensity, helping the jelly know which way is up.

The stomach is in the middle and the gonads are the elongate organs surrounding that. Species has up to ~160 tentacles (more often around 100). This jelly species makes “hopping” motions. In part, this is believed to help when feeding near the seafloor by stirring up prey (true story).

More detail on feeding from the University of Oregon:
“They feed in both the water column and on the bottom, using different methods for each (Mills et al. 2007). On the bottom, they perch on their tentacles and eat benthic organisms by touching the sediment with their manubrium [stomach with mouth at tip]. Sometimes, they will hop on the sediment, likely to stir up possible prey or move to a new location (Mills 1981, 2001). In the water column, they use “sink fishing” to find their prey. During sink fishing, the medusae extend their tentacles out from their bell and let the distal ends sink downward. They either maintain their position in the water column or sink slowly and catch prey with their tentacles. When a prey item touches a tentacle, the medusa will use that tentacle to bring the prey to the manubrium, though large prey sometimes require more tentacles; this process causes cessation in swimming and crumpling (Arkett 1984).”

#YouAreWhereYouAre

Another Red-Eye Medusa at the same site in Port Hardy.
Species of sea star on the anchor chain is a Leather Star.

Source of annotated diagram below and ALL you wish to know about the species:

Polyorchis penicillatus, A publication of the University of Oregon Libraries and the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology Individual species.

Giant Siphonophore (Praya species)

[Original post May 2017. Updated March 2022 (photos added at end).]

Here’s another fabulously unique jelly-like drifter for you. It’s a “Giant Siphonophore” which can be up to 50 metres long. That’s right – 50 metres – albeit the sightings near the surface are usually much smaller like those I have seen in the area of Port Hardy (around 2 to 3 meters).

They are not usually common off the coast of British Columbia but, like the recent sightings of many pyrosomes, their presence indicates that there must be warmer waters. They are regulars off the coast of central California.

Paired swimming bells and long stem of a Giant Siphonophore (aka Bell-Headed Tailed Jelly) ©2017 Jackie Hildering.

Siphonophore jellies are so remarkable. While they appear to be a single animal, they are a colony of individuals (“zooids”) with very specialized jobs. The paired bells aid the propulsion of the colony (pneumatophores).  The units of the long stem are known as “cormidia”. Can you discern the individual units in the image below? Each of these segments has parts for reproduction (gonozooids), catching prey and digestion (gastrozooids), and defence (dactylozooids) by having stinging cells (nematocysts). While this species does deliver a bit of a sting to its prey, it packs no where near the punch of the most well-known siphonophore – the Portuguese Man o’ War.

Tail segment of a Giant Siphonophore with dive buddy and his video light in the background. This one did not have the swimming bells. The bright yellow colour of the “zooids” in the stem is distinct in this species of siphonophore. ©2017 Jackie Hildering.

What had me quite confused when I first saw the species, is that Giant Siphonophores often do not have the swimming bells – just the stem of individuals. The bells apparently have a role in reproduction (and are known as eudoxids) but cannot regenerate the whole colony. (Added bonus to this blog – more words for the next time you play Scrabble!)

Another perspective on the paired swimming bells (pneumatophores). ©2017 Jackie Hildering.

In what little information I could find on this species, there was this fabulously, dramatic descriptor: “The giant gelatinous predator moves silently through cold, dark waters, propelled by a pair of expanding and contracting swimming bells. Its rope-like body is actually a colony of almost a thousand individual subsections, each performing a specific task. Some provide propulsion, others, reproductive functions; but most specialize in capturing and devouring prey. When hunting, these sections deploy thousands of slender, stinging tentacles to capture drifting krill, copepods, small fish, and other jellies. Almost anything blundering into this deadly net of tentacles soon finds itself stuffed into the nearest waiting mouth.” (Source: The Ecology Center).

And just in case this all is not fascinating enough, the species is also bioluminescent. It produces a bright blue light when disturbed, briefly illuminating our dark, mysterious, life-sustaining sea.

Smaller Bell-Headed Tailed Jelly; April 2nd, 2018; Browning Pass, British Columbia with dive buddy Natasha Dickinson.

Sources:

Update April 2020
See below for a GIANT Giant Siphonophore off the coast of Western Australia at a depth of 630 metres. It’s a different genus. The colony is feeding and its size is estimated to be 47 metres long (154 feet).


Update March 2022 – Two Giant Siphonophores near Port Hardy with dive buddy Jacqui Engel.




Sea Angels and Sea Butterflies?!

My dry suit has been hosed down and is drying in the sun; my regulator is soaking in fresh water; the washing machine is chug chug chugging with the clothes used over the last days of diving; and my head and heart are full of so much I want to share.

I’m back from another trip organized to God’s Pocket Dive Resort just beyond Port Hardy . . . more than 11 hours spent underwater over the last days. Such an escape. Such an immersion in wonder and that sense of humility that comes with submerging in the force that sustains this planet. Such an opportunity to learn.

I saw my first Sea Angel.

My buddy and I had been drifting along for about an hour. We had schooled with rockfish; hung next to Orange Sea Pens as they bowed in the current; and marvelled at the abundance of anemones and their babies, studding the forests of kelp. We had done our safety stop with a seeming snowfall of pulsing Aggregating Jellies streaming down around us in the sun’s beams.

 

Thousands of Aggregating Jellies aka Umbrella Jellies. Eutonina indicans to 3.5 cm across. Collective noun for jellies is "smack". ©2016 Jackie Hildering.

Thousands of Aggregating Jellies also known as “Umbrella Jellies”. Eutonina indicans to 3.5 cm across.
Collective noun for jellies is “smack”. ©2016 Jackie Hildering.

 

Close-up on Aggregating Jelly aka Umbrella Jelly. Eutonina indicans to 3.5 cm across. ©2016 Jackie Hildering.

Close-up on Aggregating Jelly –  Eutonina indicans to 3.5 cm across.
©2016 Jackie Hildering.

 

We had already been further awed by Sea Butterflies “flying” by our masks. Sea Butterflies are planktonic sea slugs!  They are “pteropods” – swimming shell-less molluscs whose “wings”(ptero) are their feet (pods). This genus does have an internal gelatinous “pseudoconch” (false shell) and the brown dot you see in my image is the gut.  Sea Butterflies feed by forming a mucus web up to 2 m in diameter in which they trap smaller plankton and bits of organic matter. Oh to see that. It was apparently first documented in the 1970s by researchers while SCUBA diving.

Sea Butterfly - Corolla spectabilis. Dark spot is the gut. ©2016 Jackie Hildering.

Sea Butterfly – Corolla spectabilis. Dark spot is the gut. See this link for more species information and a video (with excited diver vocals) of a swimming Sea Butterfly. 

 

All those jellies and Sea Butterflies pulsing around us and then, just when I was about to break the surface back into the world where gravity has such a stronger hold on me, I saw it! So small, tiny wings pulsing . . . a Sea Angel!

 

Image #1 of the Sea Angel - Cliopsis krohni to 4 cm long. Also known as a "Sea Cherub". ©2016 Jackie Hildering.

Image #1 of the Sea Angel – Cliopsis krohni to 4 cm long. Also known as a “Sea Cherub”.
©2016 Jackie Hildering.

 

Image #2 of the Sea Angel. ©2016 Jackie Hildering.

Image #2 of the Sea Angel. ©2016 Jackie Hildering.

 

Image #3 of the Sea Angel. ©2016 Jackie Hildering.

Image #3 of the Sea Angel. ©2016 Jackie Hildering.

 

This is another species of planktonic, “winged” sea slug (but the adults of this species are completely shell-less; they do not even have pseudoconch). Sea Angels are a rarity so far to the north and are only occasionally seen at the surface (found to depths of 1.5 km).  Their presence is likely due to warmer waters (El Nino and possible climate change) and a big northwest wind that had raged a couple of nights prior. The wonder of it, to see something so otherworldly, to know of its rarity in this area, and to get a sense of its planktonic fragility – surviving from a larval stage, escaping predation by fish, and to be carried by the currents in the vastness of the sea.

It may be hard to imagine but this species is a voracious predator! Cliopsis feeds on other planktonic snails by grabbing them with a long proboscis (which can be up to two times its body length), a sharp radula and hooks made of chiton!

 

Screen grab from the "Plankton Chronicles" showing a Sea Angel feeding! See amazing 1.5 min clip here http://planktonchronicles.org/en/episode/pteropods-swimming-mollusks/.

Screen grab from the “Plankton Chronicles” showing a Sea Angel feeding!
See amazing 1.5 min clip at this link.

 

And yes, their diet includes Sea Butterflies. Sea Angels can eat organisms up to three times their size!

When a Sea Angel comes into contact with a Sea Butterfly’s feeding web, it reels it in, dragging the Sea Butterfly with it. When close enough, the Sea Angel then uses its probosis to “cut” the Sea Butterfly from its psuedoconch and eats it.

The marvel of it all, the delicate balance of this planktonic world about which so few of us have knowledge but which can be so impacted by our activities. There is concern about the impact of ocean acidification (caused by our carbon use) on the development of these organisms.

As always, don’t be despondent. See the beauty, know your connection, and recognize the common solutions and great gains of caring more  . . ..  and consuming less.

Out There – Buoy Barnacles and Sailed Jellies? And a couple of Blue Whales.

Having finally recovered from having a crashed computer hard drive, I can now share with you some of the wonder and discovery from being on DFO’s offshore survey to aid the recovery of whales.

This past July, the Cetacean Research team went as far as 200 nm (370 km) off BC’s shore and it was a great success. The team sighted over 3,000 cetaceans including two endangered Blue Whales (the biggest animal that ever lived).

One of the 2 sightings made of endangered Blue Whales. Photo ©Brianna Wright.

One of the 2 endangered Blue Whales found on DFO’s offshore survey to aid the recovery of whales. The very small dorsal fin is a discerning characteristic for Blue Whales. Our research vessel the CCGS Tully is in the background. Photo ©Brianna Wright.

And there were around 150 observations of threatened Fin Whales (the second biggest animal that ever lived).

One of the +/- 150 sightings made of threatened Fin Whales. Photo ©Bruce Paterson.

One of the +/- 150 sightings made of threatened Fin Whales. Photo ©Bruce Paterson.

Threatened Fin Whale. Note the white lower right jaw. This is a discerning feature of Fin Whales. The lower right jaw is white (and the lower left jaw is black!) ©Jackie Hildering.

Threatened Fin Whale. Notice the white lower right jaw? This is a discerning feature of Fin Whales. The lower right jaw is white (and the lower left jaw is black!) ©Jackie Hildering.

There were so many Dall’s Porpoises out there; some Northern Right Whale Dolphins (I promise that, one year, I will get a good photo) and even a Pacific White-Sided Dolphin with very unique markings.

Pacific White-Sided Dolphin on the left has anomalous colouration - see the marking around his/her eye? ©Jackie Hildering

Pacific White-Sided Dolphin on the right has anomalous colouration – see the markings around his/her eye? ©Jackie Hildering

We had many sightings of threatened populations of Killer Whales –  Offshore Killer Whales (offshore fish-eaters); Resident Killer Whales (inshore fish-eaters); and Bigg’s/Transient Killer Whales (mammal-eaters). There was even data collected on some pelagic Bigg’s/Transients that have never before been identified in BC.

These are Bigg’s/Transient Killer Whales that have never before been identified in BC (or probably anywhere) due to their being among the mammal-eating killer whales that have a preference for pelagic waters. Jared Towers, in his role with DFO, is the authority in BC on mammal-eating killer whales and it is he who immediately recognized that these individuals have not been previously identified and who will assign identification names for them. The data obtained on the survey builds on DFO’s 40+ years of population studies on killer whales in BC. ©Jackie Hildering

These are some of the Bigg’s/Transient Killer Whales that had never before been identified in BC (or probably anywhere) due to their being among the mammal-eating Killer Whales that have a preference for pelagic waters. Jared Towers, in his role with DFO, is the authority in BC on mammal-eating killer whales and it is he who immediately recognized that these individuals have not been previously identified and who will assign identification names for them. The data obtained on the survey builds on DFO’s 40+ years of population studies on Killer Whales in BC. ©Jackie Hildering

There were Sperm Whales, Cuvier’s Beaked Whales (!!!) and threatened Fur Seals . . .

Inquisitive Northern Fur Seal (Threatened). Many young Northern Fur Seals, after weaned, remain at sea for 22+ months (really). ©Jackie Hildering

Inquisitive Northern Fur Seal (Threatened). Many young Northern Fur Seals, after weaned, remain at sea for 22+ months (really). ©Jackie Hildering

. . . remarkable pelagic birds;

Laysan's albatros (red-listed in BC). ©Jackie Hildering

Laysan’s albatros (red-listed in BC). ©Jackie Hildering

Mola mola and a variety of species of sharks.

Blue shark. ©Jackie Hildering.

Blue shark. ©Jackie Hildering.

To see the big marine animals was astounding especially considering how at-risk many of the species are due to past whaling/hunting and current threats like vessel-strike, prey-availability, and entanglement.

Seeing +/- 60 Humpback Whales flick-feeding together, birds all around them, made me go quiet in sheer wonderment at the beauty of it  . . . blows as far as the eyes could see. To think that we could have lost them due to whaling . . . .

But look closely at the image below. Yes, it’s a humpback with a rainbow blow (rain-blow?) but look more closely. See the little white circles? This is one of the little guys that put me in the same state of rapturous awe as seeing the giants. All around the humpbacks, in fact, over almost ever square meter of ocean out there, there were sailed jellies known as “By-the-Wind Sailors” (Velella velella). 

Yes the rainbow in the humpback's blow is stunning but look at all the Vellela vellela around the humpback! ©Jackie Hildering.

Yes the rainbow in the humpback’s blow is stunning but look at all the Velella velella around the humpback! ©Jackie Hildering.

This species of hydroid has a buoyant air-filled float and a triangular, stiff sail. It is a colonial animal with a central mouth under the floats. The tentacles trap fish and invertebrate eggs, small crustaceans (copepods) and species of free-swimming tunicates.

Vellela vellela - see the feeding tentacles? Photo ©Jackie Hildering.

Velella velella – see the feeding tentacles and deep blue pigment of the polyp? Photo ©Jackie Hildering.

To add to how remarkable this species is, some have the sail facing one way where others in the population have their sail facing the other way – so that they get blown in different directions. (For more species information see the JelliesZone).

Vellela vellela. Photo ©Jackie Hildering.

Velella velella. Photo ©Jackie Hildering.

Velella velella are a species common to our Coast and harmless to humans. However, their numbers this year were extraordinary.

Dense concentrations of Vellela vellela. Photo ©Lisa Spaven.

Dense concentrations of Velella velella. Photo ©Lisa Spaven.

If you live on the Coast, maybe you’ve seen them too this year, washed up on the beach?

The media has been full of articles about them with titles like: “Velella velella turn Tofino, B.C., shore into sea of blue“; “Mysterious Blue Jellyfish-Like Creatures Invade West Coast Beaches“; and “Thousands Of These Bizarre Blue Animals Wash Up Along California Shores“.

Vellela vellela (By-the-Wind-Sailors) washed ashore. Only their chitinous-like sails remaining, the scarlet blue floating polyp having rotted away. Photo: ©Jackie Hildeirng

Velella velella (By-the-Wind Sailors) washed ashore. Only their chitinous-like sails remaining, the scarlet blue floating polyp having rotted away. Photo: ©Jackie Hildering

But there was another smaller organism way out there that is even more other-worldly, surreal and absolutely mind-blowing – the Buoy Barnacle (Dosima fascicularis).

This species of barnacle is the only one in the world known to secrete its own float. This allows the barnacle to hang downward feeding on plankton, drifting along in the high seas. The float is gas filled and looks like polystyrene.

Buoy Barnacle with the float it has secreted itself. The smaller barnacles attached are juveniles of another species - Pelagic Gooseneck Barnacles (Lepas anatifera). Photo: ©Jackie Hildering.

Buoy Barnacle with the float it has secreted itself. The smaller barnacles attached are juveniles of another species – Pelagic Gooseneck Barnacles (Lepas anatifera). Photo: ©Jackie Hildering.

The little barnacles you see on the outside of the Buoy Barnacle in the above image are another species. They are juvenile Pelagic Gooseneck Barnacles (Lepas anatifera). This species attaches to anything that drifts. See below for a good example of that.

Glass ball covered with Pelagic Gooseneck Barnacles (Lepas anatifera). Photo: ©Bruce Paterson.

One of the glass balls the team found – covered with an astounding mass of Pelagic Gooseneck Barnacles (Lepas anatifera)! And notice the Velella Velella around the glass ball?! Photo: ©Bruce Paterson.

Imagine, imagine learning about this species out on the open sea while helping to take ID photos of threatened Fin Whales, Velella velella EVERYWHERE their sails glistening in the sun as they are propelled over the swell, and among them, these upside down barnacles travelling even faster by wind and current.

Imagine my further delight when, while still at sea, just after I had observed this species for the first time, I got an email from children back home in Telegraph Cove (via the wonderful interpreters at the Whale Interpretive Centre) wanting to know what the mystery organism was that they had found. It was the Buoy Barnacle. They had even found two attached to one buoy.

Here is the video of their find.

From Blue Whales to Buoyed Barnacles, the biodiversity, mystery and fragility of this Coast is simply staggering.

There’s so much to protect.

Sadie holding a Buoy Barnacle that we found on the beach north of Klemtu.

Buoy Barnacle found on the beach north of Klemtu in August. The exoskeleton of the foot is what is extended on the right. Smaller species attached are Pelagic Gooseneck Barnacles. ©Jackie Hildering (thanks Sadie!)

For the biggest marine bio nerds: Design of a Small Cantilevered Sheet: The Sail of Velella velella.

Lion’s Mane Jellyfish – Sherlock You Are Wrong!

I had a wonderful opportunity to photograph and film a lion’s mane jellyfish (Cyanea ferruginea) today.


The 1.5 minute annotated video clip below will give context to my “Sherlock – You Are Wrong” statement.  Enjoy!

Click here to see a short clip of the other big jelly species that can be found in our waters – the egg yolk jelly (Phacellophora camtschatica) at up to “only” 60 cm across.