Thursday, May 9, 2013

Blueberries in the Sea of Cortez



One of the things that I have always found to be facinating about the Baja California Peninsula, in general, and the Sea of Cortez, in particular, is the abundance and variety of wildlife one can observe and enjoy. Lacking a working camera has made some of our experiences nearly impossible to capture. We were particularly surprised the other afternoon, we saw two specimens of a jellyfish I'd never seen before.

Once back aboard, we googled blue jellyfish in the Sea of Cortez and were surprised to find that what we had observed is a newly identified species of jellyfish, with the common name of blueberries. Specimens of this species were observed  the Sea of Cortez in 2012 and a live jelly was sent to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for identification. It was determined that this was a newly identified species of Stomolophus.
While decomposed specimens were discovered in 2010, it wasn't until last year (2012) that live specimens were examined by experts around the world and they were determined to be a newly identified species. Such is one of the many lures of cruising in the pristine waters of the Sea of Cortez. It truely is the aquarium of the world.

7 comments:

Mid-Life Cruising! said...

Wow, a blueberry jellyfish! I guess I never heard of those because neither had anyone else until recently ... pretty! The abundance of wildlife in the Sea of Cortez sounds amazing!

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LittleCunningPlan.com said...

That is so cool! I cannot wait to see the blue jellyfish.

Anonymous said...

We have had these Blueberries in the Sea of Cortez behind our home as long as we have lived here and that is over 10 years. They can be so plentiful that hundreds of the may surround you in the water. We saw dozens on the beach this morning.
Milo

Anonymous said...

I was kayaking with my daughter near "Pelican Island" off the shore of Bahia Kino in 1999 or 2000 and we paddled through a hundred or so of these jellyfish = so heavy we could barely pick them up with he paddle. We searched for what these were and could never find out and we never saw them again. Glad to find they now have a name = wish I'd known they were "undiscovered" at the time, we'd have hauled in a few! I'll try to find the photos we took.
Linda T.

margo said...

A friend and I were kayaking near Bahia de Kino in 2005 and saw a large school of these following our kayak. Racing home, tried to identify them with research to no avail. Ten years later,last week, a marine biologist said they were blueberry jellyfish. They were so magic and lovely.

Anonymous said...

Walking by Oasis Rio Baja community on the Muleje River, I saw over 30 of these blueberry jellyfish right by the riverbank. All different sizes. Beautiful!!