Bright Lights, Big Jelly

The Atolla Jellyfish is a deep-sea dwelling creature that is usually very hard to gather information on since it is quite skiddish when noisy, cumbersome submersibles try and interfere with their normal routines.

Luckily, a new type of camera has been invented – designed to operate in the dark without being noticed by the creatures it is observing created for California’s Monterey Bay by Dr Edith Widder and colleagues of the Harbour Branch Oceanographic Institution in Florida.

When threatened the Atolla Jellyfish respond by creating a moving circular wave of light around their outer edge which is referred to as a “burglar alarm” response. Scientists theorise that jellyfish use this response to attract large animals in to eat jellyfish predators. So basically, when the jellyfish is under attack, it starts lighting up so that other, bigger, scarier animals will be attracted to the scene and (hopefully) eat the thing attacking the Atolla Jelly.

Here’s a pretty cool video of the jellyfish’s light show: