Small fish, baby slender yellowtail kingfish, hide under a Versuriga anadyomene sea jelly in this short EarthTouch video filmed by Stewart Whitfield in Thailand.
Inside the bell, the kingfish are able to stay safe from predators while feeding on the jelly’s leftovers. Careful to avoid the jelly’s stinging threads, hungry trumpetfish circle nearby in case any of the small fish leave their “floating safe house.” From EarthTouch:
Versuriga jellies are part of the order Rhizostomae, a group of jellyfish with no tentacles at all. Instead, they have eight highly branched “oral arms” – masses of spongy tissue used for filter feeding – like the ones you see in the video. This jelly doesn’t have one mouth, but rather many small ones, like some kind of ocean-dwelling Hydra. The mouths sit along the lengths of the arms, and gobble up plankton as they swim by.
“The arms aid the jelly in pulling the plankton in from the water,” explains jellyfish biologist and Deep Sea News staffer Rebecca R. Helm.
Learn more in this TED-Ed: How do jellyfish sting? Plus: Amazing Jellies and Lost in Jellyfish Lake, Eil Malk island, Palau.
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