Jelly at Santa Cruz Island?

Hi All,

I ran across this on the back side of Santa Cruz a few weeks back. I am sorry about the poor image quality, but it was very hard to focus on since it is nearly transparent. I also saw one of these a month ago at San Miguel. It looks like some sort of jelly.

Very cool Dr Steve! You've got Leucothea pulchra , a lobate ctenophore. We actually just collected a few of them on a blue water dive a couple of weeks ago. According to the literature they are showing up "out of season" but I think that they are poorly understood... and probably around more than we know. They have the consistency of wet tissue paper, so you cant even touch them without them falling apart. Out of curiosity, what depth was that photo taken at?

BTW, those specimens are on display right now in Jellies: Living Art if anyone is around here to see them. :-) They look really cool while they are feeding, they have comb whips that they fling around. I believe this is only the 3rd or 4th time they have ever been displayed...

Good find,

Wyatt

BTW, those specimens are on display right now in Jellies: Living Art if anyone is around here to see them. :-) They look really cool while they are feeding, they have comb whips that they fling around. I believe this is only the 3rd or 4th time they have ever been displayed...

It was pretty shallow, around 40ft. I believe you about their consistency. When I spotted one at San Miguel, I tried to point it out to my dive buddy. He couldn't see it at all and thought I was pointing to something on the bottom. He then proceeded to put his hand straight through it, shredding it to bits, just as I was trying to take an image!

For the one that I did get an image of, you could see the comb whips pulsing in the current. It would have made a nice video, but I only shoot stills.

Ah, thats very interesting. We also found most of them at ~40 ft. deep, the shallowest specimen being seen at 20 ft. deep. Again, great sighting!