Divers with sophisticated cameras home in on a moon jelly. Normally translucent,
this animal has had dye spread around it to make it stand out from the surrounding water.
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Scenes along the Dalmatian Coast |
They are among the ocean’s most voracious and successful carnivores, and their species has been in business for a long time—about 70,000 years according to Eric Klos ’72 of URI’s Graduate School of Oceanography.
They are also widespread—in fact you have seen them stranded on ocean beaches after a storm or unusually high tide. They are moon jellyfish (Aurelia aurita), a.k.a. moon jellies, saucer jellies, or common sea jellies.
In 2004 Klos joined with Professor Jack Costello of Providence College, a world-renowned jellyfish expert, and other divers to study the swimming and feeding behavior of moon jellies in marine lakes along the Dalmatian coast of Croatia.
“Jellyfish are creatures so simple that scientists once considered them plants,” Costello has written. “But they’re the critical group to study if you want to understand motion and behavior.”
Because they are isolated in marine lakes, these Croatian jellyfish show interesting differences from the more wide ranging moon jellies of the open seas, including those of the nearby Adriatic Sea.
Klos took these striking underwater photos in a marine lake on Mljet Island that consisted of a large lake connected to a much smaller lake by a narrow band of water. The team carefully spread dye around their quarry to better view the jellyfish and to study the pulsating motion of swimming that draws prey onto their tentacles.
Klos recently shared his photos and diving experiences at a public lecture sponsored by the Friends of Oceanography at the Narragansett Bay Campus where he is coordinator of facility operations.
By Vida-Wynne GriffinPhotos by Eric Klos
