Incredible Jellyfish

I'm so excited to have found these freshwater jellyfish in their medusa stage again. They're fascinating to watch - very calming and fluid.

It was particularly difficult snapping a picture while it was moving, but I was lucky enough to capture a few. The sun casting shadows helped enormously because it showed up the tentacles, which are transparent and incredibly difficult to see in the water, usually.

Dale first saw them in our lake during the fall of 2020, and we discovered that although they are not natives, their current distribution and status is 'worldwide' having been introduced from China. I have not found any documented impact these may have on habitats and ecosystems they've been introduced to, so we're just enjoying their beauty and delicacy when we see them.

This is the freshwater, or peach blossom, jellyfish Craspedacusta sowerbii. The USGS fact sheet on these animals explains that they "more often exist as microscopic ...dormant resting bodies, ... as larvae ..., or as sessile polyps, which attach to stable surfaces and can form colonies" (Craspedacusta sowerbii), so we have been fortunate in getting the chance to see this floating stage.