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Happy New Year!


Happy New Year!
Photo Information
Copyright: Manyee Desandies (manyee) Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 3089 W: 230 N: 6774] (23770)
Genre: Animals
Medium: Color
Date Taken: 2007-12-28
Categories: Cnidarians
Camera: Canon Powershot S3 IS
Photo Version: Original Version
Theme(s): Underwater Wonder World 3, RARE or SIGNIFICANT contributions to TN 2, Jellies [view contributor(s)]
Date Submitted: 2007-12-31 15:21
Viewed: 3799
Points: 14
[Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note
Wishing all my friends on TN a 2008 filled with the wonders of Nature's gifts.

This comb jelly was about 10 cm long and captured at the Monterey Bay Aquarium (through thick fingerprint-smudged glass and in very low light) .
This photo cannot do justice to the beauty of this amazing creature. To see these transparent jellies pulsating their neon lights through the dark water is a mesmerizing experience.

Comb Jelly
Beroe spp.

These beautiful comb jellies are oval-shaped, with eight rows of tiny comblike plates that they beat to move themselves through the water. As they swim, the comb rows diffract light to produce a shimmering, rainbow effect. Voracious predators on other jellies, some can expand their stomachs to hold prey nearly half their own size.
Jellies are simple creatures with few specialized organs. Most jellies can detect chemical traces in the water that allow them to locate food, and many are equipped with a gravity-sensitive structure, called a statocyst, that gives them a sense of up and down in the water.

Species Information:
Diet: other ctenophores, some salps and siphonophores
Size: varies with species
Range: varies with species
Relatives: sea gooseberry, lobed comb jelly; Phylum: Ctenophora
Conservation Notes:
Jellies can be very sensitive to water quality during certain points in their life cycle. Changes in the health of jelly populations may be a tip-off to larger environmental problems.

Cool Facts:
Alien as it looks, a jelly’s soft shape is perfectly adapted to its environment. The animal’s thin skin stretches over a body that’s more than 95% water (no bones or shells to weigh it down).
Comb jellies will eat comb jellies larger than themselves by biting off chunks with special cilia structures in their mouths.

Source
loot, cecilia, matatur, JoseMiguel, izler, oanaotilia has marked this note useful
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Critiques [Translate]

Hi Manyee,
This is a really cool shot of this under the sea dweller, it looks as though it were from outer space putting on a firework show celebrating the new year, and then they land and eat us(lol).Take care, hope to see more of your wonderful captures. :)

  • Great 
  • loot Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 5524 W: 722 N: 4163] (11276)
  • [2008-01-01 1:20]
  • [2]

Hi ManYee

I can appreciate that you say the "photo cannot do justice to the beauty of this amazing creature", but I think you did a pretty fine job in trying. It is absolutely amazing. The light emitted from this "underwater alien" is something not even Steven Spielberg could reproduce in his "Close encounters of the 3rd kind". From my research this photo seems to be a TrekNature first and thereby qualifies for my theme of "RARE or SIGNIFICANT contributions to TN".

An excellent result under rather difficult circumstances. These animals are continuously moving in a pulsating fashion and you obviously were not allowed to use any fill-in flash thus having to deal with very low light conditions.

Great work and TFS.
Regards
Loot

Hi Manyee,
Your bright comb jelly is a beauty indeed, I share your view that it could be better, at least a little more in-focus, then it would be perfect. However I do not share your belief that it is a Beroe species, I'm not sure but it superficially looks like a Bolinopsis species.
Mehmet

Hi Manyee,
What a luminiscent capture!
I like the clear capture you were able to get from the aquarium, with all that different colours on it.
Wish you a very Happy New Year and all the best to you and your family.
Warm regards,
JM

Wishing you and your love ones the joyous Happy New Year...

Cheers,
Cecilia

  • Great 
  • izler Gold Star Critiquer [C: 1387 W: 3 N: 9] (44)
  • [2008-03-30 14:47]

hello Manyee
good capture of this beautiful "comb jelly" that is interesting and foreign species for me
i like POV, dark BG, light, colours, details and note
TFS
regards
izler

Hy Manyee
Maybe not as sharp as possible, but a very rare image on TN. Probably not very easy to photograph , even in an aquarium.
Regards,
Oana

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