Anyone Identifies this Jelly fish?

[DeepThought]

Anybody knows the name of this Jelly fish? I saw about 4 of those (or ones that seemed very similar) last week in the med. sea. They had a few small fish living inside and they were about 1-3 meter deep. The blue/prurple dots, the green hue, the fish the live inside and the structure make them fun to watch (compared to the normal boring bing stinging jelly fish we have). Do they sting? badly?

*The picture is from the Venezuelan site gallary, I think it was shot in Nice.

 

[Merlin]

I can identify it as one I would stay away from ... it looks feisty

 

[octopus]

No...but I can contribute to the gallery.
(as seen in Adriatic)

 

[DeepThought]

yup, now I'm even more sure it's the same kind.
I'd guess actually that they don't sting much, they look as if they are growning algae inside as a main source of food... (but maybe I'm fantasizing a symbiotic utopia...)

 

[Mickyfish]

Hi!
this is actually a Cassiopea or fried-egg jellyfish (Cotylorhiza tuberculata) and the sting is not painful unless coming from a very large specimen. They are common in the Med. sometimes in large numbers.
Deepthought, as far as I know, they are not symbiotic but feeding on plancton.
Cheers!
Micky

 

[Alison]

We saw loads of these over the last couple of weeks off the Spanish coast, they didnt sting either of us even with no wetsuits. Not the most elegant of Jellies but very interesting to wach the fish interacting with them.
On the subject of thingies in the med, do you have Barracuda there? I swore I saw one for about half a second but Im not sure.

 

[DeepThought]

10x Micky! I actually had some feminine mythological name in the back of my mind related to those jellies but couldn't bring it up!
Those are the uncommon and the better looking kind in our side of the med from what I've seen, the more east and south you go in the med the poorer it gets.

Ali, though I've never seen any in the med (and am not expecting to), I think there is a specie of small medaterranian barracudas. If it was the med side of Spain there's a good chance it was so frightened from the Gibraltar crew it ran away at the wrong direction and will never leave the med.

 

[octopus]

If you did not have good look at the fish in question...could it have been big-ish needle fish instead of small-ish barracuda?

Needlefish:

Barracuda:

 

[octopus]

By the way...would anyone know more about the following (I love sushi/sashimi):

All tuna harber bacteria in their meat that if not handled correctly can cause scombroid poisoning in humans.

 

[Alison]

Definitely not a needle fish, although there were plenty of small ones, Ive seen Barracuda before and I'd swear that what I saw, it was about 1m long and 10 - 150cm thick with the characteristic tail, just I didnt think they were found in the med. Maybe it was a rogue or we'd been drinking to much (Colin saw it too); very strange

 

[Donna]

I've just been for a dive on the Zenobia and there's quite a few barracuda swimming around, and some big grouper too

Donna

 

[Alison]

Ah! Cool! So I'm not loosing the plot then rofl
Talking about the Med, it was only the second time in about 30 years that Ive been to there, I was supprised by the amount of fish I saw, even in shallow water; met a couple of young spearfishermen in Calpe and had a go with one of their guns for half an hour, got 2 Bream (1 & 1 1/2Kgs) and 2 small Grouper about the same sizes which amazed me after hearing how difficult it can be, guess some places are alot worse than others
Also supprised at the amount of that sea grass stuff, I saw lots of it in Corfu about 5 years ago when I was in the med last but I dont remember seeing any when I was younger and we holiday'd in the med yearly

 

[Golfinho]

Octopus what's scombroid poisoning then, life threatening, sure won't stop me eating sushi!!!!

Saw those jellyfish both in Croatia and Espana recently, the small fish seem to use the jellyfish as protection from predators, very clever!!! Amazing how they avoid getting stung, maybe they also attract fish to the jellyfish....

 

[Adrian]

Alison,
Those are Mediterranean barracuda, a tame version of the Carribean one. By the way, the legal size for grouper in Spain is 45 cm long. a 1.5 kg Sargo is pretty good though!

Adrian

 

[Alison]

Whoops! I guess the two I shot were about 40 cms ish baybe a little bigger but not 45 Not a mistake I'll likely make again. I hadnt looked into minimum sizes as I hadnt planned on fishing it was just a chance encounter and after the first one, the two guys were so pleased I thought it was OK. Feel like a bit of a twit now Thanks for pointing that out

 

[Adrian]

Sometimes I think the best part of spearfishing is how large the fish look underwater

On barracuda-

Some time ago I was at the end of an aspetto and was just about to come up (contractions were visiting) and a voice in my head said "Wait"" but I didn't listen, it's pretty hard when it's becoming unconfortable and just as was rising from my hiding place with the speargun all pointed the wrong way a largish barracuda appeared not a meter and a half from me. The moment it saw me it took off with such speed I heard the body snap. If I would have waited just 5 seconds more...gotta listen to that intuition, it's easy when you're confortable, difficult when your ego gets in the way, rationalizing. But that's the best part, the results, when it all works out.

Adrian

 

[DeepThought]

Actually, on good diving days, intuition is what makes me go back up.