BIG JELLYFISH SPOTTED FROM FIZZING - 27TH JULY 2008

WRITTEN BY SUE

There we were just minding our own business having dropped Aqua Element divers in for their second dive of the day, a drift off ‘Old Noor’ (They had earlier had a cracking dive on the TR Thompson) and out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of what I thought was a large plastic bag.

On further investigation it was a little more than a carrier bag. It was the biggest jellyfish I’ve seen so far in British waters, it remained near the surface for some time, this enabled us to get a good look at it. Back at the Centre, a search on the internet identified it as:

Rhizostoma octopus (=R. pulmo) Common names not often used include: Barrel Jellyfish, Football Jellyfish, Root-mouthed Jellyfish.