See related story: Jellies: Art, Science and Om
This dancer's colorful scarves parallel the delicate tentacles of the jellies. The scene is part of a video included in
Jellies: Living Art.
The moon jelly is named after its large round milky white bell, which can grow up to 15 inches in diameter. In 1991 nearly 2,500 juvenile moon jellies were sent into orbit aboard the space shuttle Columbia as part of a weightlessness study.
Liquid Luminous Secrets
: Plasma installation by Cork Marcheschi, Jim Nowak and Reid Johnston. Neon, xenon, argon, and krypton gas are enclosed in illuminated glass shapes.
This is the classic jelly -- a large bell, trailing tentacles and lacy oral arms. Some species can grow to giant size, with a bell over three feet in diameter and tentacles stretching over 100 feet. But most species are a more manageable, dinner-plate size. They are named for their sting, which to humans feels like a bee sting but is deadly to its prey.
Pelagia Satava
consists of three blown and constructed glass jellies standing 24 inches high.
Unlike their multi-tentacled cousins, comb jellies lack stinging cells. They rely instead on sticky oral lobes to capture prey, which is often other comb jellies. They lack a definite bell, and propel themselves horizontally by undulating structures called "comb rows" containing several thousand hair-like cilia. This wave-like movement produces beautiful rainbow patterns.
Periphylla,
by Ernst Haeckel.
The blue jelly comes in colors ranging from very light blue to dark purple and burgundy, and its bell pulses in a distinctive, staccato-like rhythm. This jelly �- minus its tentacles and dried and salted -- is sold as an edible treat in Asian markets.
Jellies: Living Art
marks the North American debut of this striking and rare flower hat jelly. It is found only in waters off southern Japan, Brazil and Argentina at certain times of the year.
Jellies: Living Art
exhibit.
Rapture of the Deep
, 1985.
Lanny Bergner's installation includes works he titled
Fungoids.
A woman communes with the moon jellies at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
