A juvenile fish and a jellyfish amid a zooplankton bloom, off the Shetland Islands, Atlantic Ocean. Photo © Henley Spiers, courtesy Hakai Magazine
A jelly swims amid a zooplankton bloom, its tentacles providing shelter for juvenile fish.
As photographer Henley Spiers said, “The bloom also attracted these fish that I observed using a jellyfish as a sort of “satellite of life.”
She noted how the young fish would shelter among the jelly’s tentacles when they felt threatened. And “If the jellyfish also feels threatened, it balls up, retracting its tentacles toward the bell. With the stinging tentacles no longer offering the same protection, the juvenile fish huddle in the jellyfish’s bell, with nervous eyes peering back through a gelatinous window.”
A wondrous example of the symbiosis among creatures in our planet’s remarkable ocean.
Oceanwire 