Most of these guys rely on zoo- or phytoplankton for their food, so they tend to be up in the surface water. This pteropod, Corolla sp., is quite large, and often seen in open ocean water, and even inshore when these water masses intrude into such areas. I love blue-water diving; in grad school I was in a lab that studied jellies in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.
Whoah…that is beautiful!
I would have expected those to be from much deeper, but all those shots (go look!) are at recreational dive depth. :)
Most of these guys rely on zoo- or phytoplankton for their food, so they tend to be up in the surface water. This pteropod, Corolla sp., is quite large, and often seen in open ocean water, and even inshore when these water masses intrude into such areas. I love blue-water diving; in grad school I was in a lab that studied jellies in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.