Cassiopea are solar-powered jellyfish. They have a symbiotic relationship with photosynthetic dinoflagellates or zooxanthellae—algae that live just beneath their tentacles. The algae feed on the sun and the Cassiopea feeds on the nutrients they make.
This short but beautiful clip is from the BBC Earth’s Atlantic: Wildest Ocean on Earth. A bit of background on the solar-powered Cassiopea from Wikipedia:
Cassiopea (upside-down jellyfish) is a genus of true jellyfish and the only members of the family Cassiopeidae. They are found in warmer coastal regions around the world, including shallow mangrove swamps, mudflats, canals, and turtle grass flats in Florida, and the Caribbean and Micronesia. The medusa usually lives upside-down on the bottom, which has earned them the common name.
Do jellyfish sleep? Learn more about this brainless, spineless Cassiopea. Plus, watch more videos about jellyfish on TKSST:
• A human-sized barrel jellyfish near Cornwall
• A swarm of hungry moon jellies
• Monterey Bay Aquarium’s LIVE Jelly Cams
• Hawksbill turtle snacks on a jellyfish
• NOAA’s Okeanos Explorer in the Mariana Trench
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