What jellyfish looks like a plastic bag?

First discovered in the 1960s, Deepstaria enigmatica — named for underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau’s submersible Deepstar 4000, and the jellyfish’s mysteriousness – has only made rare appearances since.  It is looking like a plastic bag. In November 2017, Deepstaria was spotted off the coast of San Benedicto Island, around 3,195 feet deep down in the Pacific Ocean.

Resembling a plastic bag, it has a large, thin bell and no tentacles. Since most jellyfish use tentacles to catch their prey, Deepstaria has to rely on another method. Since its bell can open up to a metre across, Deepstaria uses it to catch upward-moving prey. closing around the prey like a bag.

Deepstaria enigmatica have been observed during jelly-falls. This happens when a jellyfish carcass falls through the water column to the ocean floor. A Deepstaria enigmatica jelly fall was first observed in the lower portion of the oxygen minimum zone of the ocean. It was observed as shrimp and crabs were scavenging its carcass.

These jelly falls are advantageous to the ocean floor, causing a source of organic enrichment, similar to a whale fall; as carcasses decay away from light and the more oxygen-rich environments of the upper ocean, the animal decays far slower, providing a longer-lasting source of nutrients. The carcasses lead to a restoration of degraded mineral content in the water column. The contribution of these jelly falls is underestimated. The Deepstaria enigmatica fall shows an increase in oxygen availability and organic matter, benefitting the ecosystems found at the bottom of the ocean.

The Deepstaria jellyfish, unlike many jellyfish, lacks tentacles of any kind, which other species of jellyfish commonly use to entrap and consume prey. Instead, Deepstaria trap prey inside their bell, where they are consumed. This method also provides for isopods, who may live inside the jellyfish’s bell in a symbiotic relationship

In the 1960s Jacques Cousteau, a French explorer, unexpectedly found the Deepstaria jellyfish in a deep-sea exploration mission. He was exploring the deep sea near Southwest Baker Island in a submarine called the Deepstar 4000, which became the inspiration for the name of this jellyfish. The Deepstaria jellyfish has been found in the Gulf of Mexico, Antarctic, and the Pacific Ocean. In all of these locations, the jellyfish was found 3,000 ft (910 m) below sea level.

Credit : Wikipedia 

Picture Credit : Google 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *