Possible sighting of Tiburonia granrojo

Description and Comments

Bell was about 2 feet in diameter and very sphere shaped. The texture of the bell was rough looking, opaque, and gray. From a distance it looked like the moon. It was drifting in a horizontal orientation with the bottom of the bell facing away from us. I swam closer and to the side where I could see a translucent skirt about a half to 3/4 of an inch long. The bell was nearly closed with the bottom opening being about 1 foot in diameter. I did not get a look inside the bell. I was nervous about approaching the business end of an unknown jellyfish and frankly this thing was downright creepy looking. We could not see any tentacles. It did not move, but hung neutral in the water column, drifting with the current. The depth was about 55 feet. Water temp was 41 deg. F. visibility was very good, almost 70 feet. We were not using any artificial light so we may have missed any red coloration.

Author

Eric Lunde

Type of organism

Jellyfish

Quantity

1

Latitude

55.41

Longitude

-131.76

Comments

jellywatch Tue, 03/04/2014 - 22:19

What was the location? The pin is on land near Ketchikan, Alaska. That would be quite amazing if it were Tiburonia that shallow, but lots of deep species are found shallow at high latitudes, so perhaps it is not out of the question. The fleshy "finger-like" oral arms would be something to notice. Without a view of the business end, it is hard to confirm, but very intriguing.

Eric Lunde Thu, 03/06/2014 - 17:37

I used the Google map on your site to set the location. On my phone when I zoom in the pin looks to be in the right place. Due to the steep glacial features of our landscape here in southeast Alaska much of the recreational dive depths are very close to shore. I wish I had my camera on this dive. I kind of feel like this is the diving equivalent of a Bigfoot sighting. At least the search to figure out what it was we saw led me to your cool website. I think it would be a lot of fun identifying jellies and posting the sightings here. Do have you have any recommendations on a jellyfish field guide, preferably with a key, that would be good for the southeast Alaska area?

jellywatch Thu, 03/06/2014 - 18:02

OK -- hadn't zoomed in enough to get past the glacier. It definitely is a Bigfoot-type sighting, but in a good way. We forwarded it to the two scientists who described that species and they were both amazed at the possibility and did not discount it right away. The fjords get lots of what we would consider deep species, but at scuba depths: http://www.seawater.no/fauna/cnidaria/periphylla.html

We would love to get any and all sightings. There is not a good guide for your area that I know of. http://jellieszone.com is pretty good for the temperate Pacific in general.