Jellyfish Lake is a well-known dive site in the Pacific island of Palau. It is completely isolated, but in the distant past it had an outlet to the ocean. The outlet was closed off and the high jellyfish population started to feed on quickly-reproducing algae.
Over millions of years, it became an advantage for the jellyfish to lose their stinging cells, or nematocysts. Today, the very high jellyfish population are stingless, and tourists can enjoy swimming with them much closer than would be possible anywhere else.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Swimming with the Jellyfish
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Another interesting note is that these creatures have nothing to eat in their isolated environment. They have evolved over time to create their own food, and daily, they migrate from one side of the lake to the other to stay in the sun. They produce food from bacteria they hold in their bodies which are photosynthetic.
Post a Comment