Jellyfish: Amazing photos of the invertebrates captured by photographer
- Published
The images come from a project by photographer Jan Schlegel called 'Of Aliens, Mermaids and Medusas'. Scientists have described nearly 3,200 species of jellyfish, and Schlegel's images show how varied the creatures can be.
This jellyfish might look peaceful, but the box jellyfish with its cube-like body is actually one of the most dangerous creatures on Earth with its deadly sting.
Not a type of mushroom but a spotted jellyfish! The white-spotted jellyfish, or phyllorhiza punctata, is a species of jellyfish native to the western Pacific Ocean. Jellyfish don't have blood, bones or even a brain, but they are still remarkably complex.
The Beroe Cucumbis or Comb jellies look very different to the average jellyfish. They can grow up to 15cm in length and look more like a courgette or a gherkin. In the water they are hard to spot because they are completely transparent. They have eight 'combs' which run the length of their body and are used like oars to propel them along.
Jellyfish are thought to have existed for 500 million to 700 million years - which is one of the reason Jan Schlegel finds them so fascinating. The photographer captured the images at a lab in the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town, South Africa. “I was watching the movements of a moon jellyfish in a tank for days and I realised it was absolutely fantastic,” he says. “I realised this is not a jellyfish, this is a monster looking at me.”
A fish photobombs a Rhizostoma luteum, a type of giant jellyfish in one of the images. The photographs were produced using a printing process called platinum printing which was first introduced in the 1870s and uses light sensitive iron salts to create these striking black and white images.
- Published5 March 2016
- Published13 August 2021
