Jelly Fish and an Octopus

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Video credit: Stephen Grace
A few weeks ago, volunteers and staff found juvenile octopuses in the tide pools at Haystack Rock. You can see pictures of them in the last blog post. This past week, another juvenile octopus was found in a tide pool where the water was receding. The octopus was placed in an aquarium to await the incoming tide. Watch the video to see the octopus move around.


Moon jelly
Volunteers and staff are also seeing a number of jelly fish. Pictured above is a moon jelly, Aurelia aurita. The jellyfish is translucent, usually about 25–40 cm (10–16 in) in diameter, and can be recognized by its four horseshoe-shaped gonads, easily seen through the top of the bell. It feeds by collecting medusae, plankton, and mollusks with its tentacles, and bringing them into its body for digestion. (Wikipedia)

Volunteer, Stephen Grace, also found this Pacific sea nettle jelly, Chrysaora fuscescens, about a mile north of Haystack Rock. Sea nettles have a distinctive golden-brown bell with a reddish tint. The bell can grow to be larger than one meter (three feet) in diameter in the wild, though most are less than 50 cm across. The long, spiraling, white oral arms and the 24 undulating maroon tentacles may trail behind as far as 15 feet. For humans, its sting is often irritating, but rarely dangerous. (Wikipedia)

Pacific sea nettle jelly
(photo credit: Stephen Grace)

What kind of jelly fish do you think this was?
While octopus and jelly fish are both invertebrates, they have many differences. For an interesting comparison between octopus and jelly fish, visit this site. 

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