Clinging Jellyfish

Image: WoRMS Editorial Board
Gonionemus vertens

Jellyfish are known to be inveterate drifters. They love nothing more than to hang out in the water column, the careful fluttering and pulsing of their bell all but powerless in the face of a mild current.

But what if a jellyfish doesn't want to do that? What if they find a nice plot of ocean, verdant with plant life, the water a particularly delightful shade of blue, and they just want to settle down for a while? One tiny Hydrozoan has the answer.

In the Pink

Image: Bernard DUPONT

Sometimes...

Deep Sea Valentines

Image: NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program, INDEX-SATAL 2010

It's the perfect Valentine's gift: a beautiful bouquet of red blobs!

Hanging Stomach Jellyfish

Stomotoca atra

I'm sure you've heard of beer-bellied men and pot-bellied pigs...

But what about Hanging Stomach Jellyfish?

Cold Sea Balloon... OF DEATH!

It's a drawstring bag of death! It's a bin liner of doom!

No, it's... er...

Seventh Seal of the Hallowe'en Horrors

It's Halloween! That time of year when we eat humble pie with death, eat a whole bottle of bitter pills with darkness and eat lead with evil. Woo!

Veils From the Crypt

Video: Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI)

Cryptic monsters... undercover horrors... sleeper creepers... From the monsters under the bed to the ghosts in the attic, the vampire on the board of directors to the werewolf in the historical reenactment society, there's no getting away from them. Is your paperboy a ghoul? Is your sister-in-law a zombie? Are you absolutely sure you're not a fish-person?

Bubble Gum Oasis

It's a Bubble Gum Coral!

Isn't it beautiful? Sort of? Underneath it all, maybe?

Eyelashes Onna Stick

Image: NOAA Photo Library
Actinoscyphia sp.

The Venus Flytrap Anemone is 100% pure eyelashes!

Unidentified Floating Object 2.0

Wow! Such light, such colour, such glorious delicate tentacles...

Video: oceanexplorergov

The space aliens really need to up their game if they don't want to be outdone by the UFOs of the sea!

Crabs get the prettiest homes

Image: Nick Hobgood

We landlubbers really get the raw end of the deal when it comes to symbiosis. We got parasites, all right. You can hardly walk for the mites, lice and flatworms clinging to every nook and cranny.

Berried Anemone

Image: Oceana in Europe
Alicia mirabilis

Well now, that's a lot of berries. A whole pile of them, in fact.

But where's the anemone?

Button Zoanthid

Image: Stéphane Duquesne

Looks like I've been getting buttons all wrong this whole time. All my buttons consist of about one colour and have approximately zero tentacles. Also I've got them mostly on shirts.

I never thought of gathering them up into a bouquet of buttons!

Carpet Anemone

Image: Nevit Dilmen

Nylon? That's just plastic. Wool? Keep it, sheep. Tiger pelt? I'd rather a live, trained tiger to do my bidding.

No. When it comes to carpets, it's teeny-tiny tentacles tickling my tootsies from now on.

Brain on Holiday

Some might claim this is Leuckartiara octona, a jellyfish widespread in chillier parts of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans...

Pretty Little Jellyfish

I know absolutely nothing about this jellyfish except that it's gorgeous and I want one on my ceiling.

Video: oceanexplorergov

Even better would be if it floated a few feet above my head. Then it'd be on all the ceilings.

Magnificent Sea Anemone

Image: Nick Hobgood
Heteractis magnifica

Wow! It's... Magnificent!

Iridogorgia

Image: NOAA Photo Library

Oooo... Aaaaah...

Nice to see some fireworks brightening up the abyss!

Mushroom Coral

Image: Nick Hobgood

Hmm... Now what do we really want? A mushroom that has tentacles and a mouth? That would be nice to add a bit of cephalopod flair to our woodland walks. Or a coral that looks a bit like a mushroom?

Stygiomedusa gigantea

What is a jellyfish to do when it has NO TENTACLES?