Among the very largest jellyfish in the world are those related to our lion's mane jellyfish, Cyanea, of which we have two predominant species in British waters, though both are to be found scattered through all oceans of the world. Our orange species, seen here, can be six feet across the bell and trails stinging tentacle sixty feet behind it. When we came upon this particular individual, off the Queensland coast in Australia, it was accompanied by a few others, and although the bell was only about two feet across, the tentacle mass, when we first spotted it was like a vast beige highway streaming out in the shallow warm waters near a mangrove swamp. None of us could believe the vast extent of the tentacle expansion in these calm waters. It was as if the mass of tentacles had expanded ten times over and were now appropriate to an owner ten times bigger than the size of the bell would suggest. Amongst the tentacles swam in and around a discreet shoal of young carangid fish that by being there, certainly derived protection from prowling fish predators, for ever on the look out for shoals of young fish.

Australia (1998)

Nikonos III | Kodachrome 64