Meteor Shower in the Water?

Description and Comments

Last night while watching the stars for meteors, my boyfriend noticed a beautiful light show in the sea. Several little "jellyfish" were lighting up the water like fireflies in the sky. These ranged from about quarter to half dollar sizes and were concentrated mainly within a foot or two of the rocky water's edge. It was AMAZING!

Author

JessesGirl

Type of organism

Red Tide

Quantity

11

Latitude

29.00

Longitude

-82.76

Comments

JessesGirl Sun, 05/25/2014 - 11:51

Yes. Small and clear without tentacles. My bf caught one in a cup so we could see it up close. Looked ovoid to me, more round to him. I looked online to see if we could identify it. I think these may have been comb jellies. BF is still undecided. It was hard to find good information on them. Read a lot about them being invasive, but could not determine if that was the case for this area. The thing I found odd was online it said these give off a blue or green light. The light was normal "yellowish white". Just like firefly light, but not diffused like fireflies, very clear. It would not light up in the cup, so I did not get to see it light up close. Btw, he did return it to the water. Hope this helps, and if you know what these were, please let me know. :)

BernietheTortoise Sun, 05/25/2014 - 15:07

If they looked like the species in the picture in the link below, they are comb jellies. Comb jellies are able to produce a variety of colors when beating their cilia. This produces a rainbow of colors, and is often seen in the water at night. The yellowish glow is unusual. Generally, any type of jellyfish that glows gives off an either rainbow type or bluish glow.

http://www.mbari.org/news/news_releases/2010/jellywatch/ctenophore-beac…

JessesGirl Sun, 05/25/2014 - 15:33

I am pretty sure that is what they were. Do you know if these are an invasive species to the FL gulf coast? We are going to go back and take the video camera to hopefully get pictures and video. Thanks for the pic to compare!

jellywatch Mon, 05/26/2014 - 10:51

They are native to that area and have been introduced in other waters. The genome was sequenced recently and published in December. They are widely used in lab studies so we actually know a lot about their development, etc. Regarding the color of light, their luminescence is blue-green, but sometimes in low light conditions our eyes use the rods instead of the color-sensitive cones, so we can't perceive color as well and dim lights look whitish. Maybe that also contributed to what you saw?

BernietheTortoise Mon, 05/26/2014 - 12:06

That is great that you were able to see such beautiful creatures in a free area of beach! It is actually very common to see these creatures, but they are rarely noticed since there is a great abundance of artificial lighting at beaches. I am pretty sure that either way, they were comb jellies. Thanks for the report again, and it was a pleasure to communicate with you! Remember to send any reports of other jellyfish!