A technicolor feast in the deep 💜🍴🩷
The dinner plate jelly (Solmissus spp.) may look delicate, but it's one of the deep sea's most skilled predators. This denizen of the deep has an appetite for other gelatinous animals. Jellies, comb jellies, siphonophores, salps—they are all on the menu for Solmissus. In fact, this jelly has one of the most diverse diets of all midwater animals—so far, we have seen Solmissus eating 21 different types of gelatinous prey. A hungry dinner plate jelly swims with tentacles held forward. Most jellies are passive predators who drag wispy tentacles behind their bells to catch food that gets trapped in their wake. But the dinner plate jelly relies on stealth to capture food. Swimming with those tentacles out in front allows Solmissus to catch their prey by surprise. Before prey can sense the pulses of the approaching predator, the jelly’s crown of tentacles snares a meal. Tiny stinging cells on the jelly’s tentacles fire microscopic harpoons that stick like Velcro to slippery prey. The tentacles curl under, bringing their catch to the mouth beneath the bell, then slowly unfurl to snatch their next meal. Solmissus is one of the most common jellies that we encounter in the depths of Monterey Bay’s submarine canyon. Our researchers have revealed the abundance and importance of jellies in the deep sea. Using underwater robots, we can observe delicate deep-sea drifters without damaging them or disrupting their behaviors.
