A Rare Look at the Giant Phantom Jelly

The giant phantom jellyfish (Stygiomedusa gigantea) is called that because it's really big and scientists don't get to see one often. Until fairly recently, trawl nets were used to bring up deep-sea specimens to study, and jellyfish have a tendency to fall apart in them before they reach the surface. However, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) sent down an ROV in November and caught this one in its natural habitat, at 990 meters (3,200 feet) below the surface.

At first glance, this jelly looks like a load of laundry floating in the water. But bear in mind that the bell is more than a meter (3.3 feet) wide, and the trailing "oral arms" can grow to ten meters (33 feet) long! Read more about the giant phantom jellyfish at MBARI, and see a longer video about this species.

The music on this video is nice, but I personally prefer the live reactions from the scientists back on the research ship that we are used to from MBARI. -via Boing Boing