Jellyfish Facts: Poisonous, Glowing, Largest Jellyfish in the World
Jellyfish can rightfully be called one of the most mysterious inhabitants of the depths of the sea, causing interest and a certain fear. Who are they, where did they come from, what varieties are there in the world, what is their life cycle, are they as dangerous as popular rumor says - I want to know about all this for sure.
Jellyfish appeared more than 650 million years ago, making them one of the oldest organisms on Earth.
About 95% of the jellyfish's body is water, which is also their habitat. Most jellyfish live in salt water, although there are species that prefer fresh water. Jellyfish - phase life cycle representatives of the genus Medusozoa, "sea jelly" alternates with a nonmotile asexual phase of nonmotile polyps, from which they are formed by budding after maturation.
The name was introduced in the 18th century by Carl Linnaeus, who saw in these strange organisms a certain resemblance to the mythical Gorgon Medusa, due to the presence of tentacles that flutter like hair. With their help, the jellyfish catches small organisms that serve as food for it. The tentacles may look like long or short, pointed threads, but they are all equipped with stinging cells that stun prey and make hunting easier.
Glowing jellyfish
The one who saw it glow dark night sea water, this sight is unlikely to be forgotten: myriads of lights illuminate deep sea, shimmer like diamonds. The reason for this amazing phenomenon is the smallest planktonic organisms, including jellyfish. The phosphoric jellyfish is considered one of the most beautiful. It is not found very often, living in the benthic zone near the coasts of Japan, Brazil, and Argentina.
The diameter of the luminous jellyfish umbrella can reach 15 centimeters. Living in the dark depths, jellyfish are forced to adapt to conditions, provide themselves with food, so as not to disappear altogether as a species. An interesting fact is that the bodies of jellyfish do not have muscle fibers and cannot resist water flows.
Since the slow jellyfish, swimming at the will of the current, cannot keep up with mobile crustaceans, small fish or other planktonic inhabitants, they have to use a trick and force them to swim up to the predatory mouth opening. And the best bait in the darkness of the bottom space is light.
The body of a luminous jellyfish contains a pigment - luciferin, which is oxidized under the influence of a special enzyme - luciferase. The bright light attracts victims like moths to a candle flame.
Some species of luminous jellyfish, such as Rathkea, Equorea, Pelagia, live at the surface of the water, and, gathering in large quantities, they literally make the sea burn. The amazing ability to emit light has interested scientists. Phosphors have been successfully isolated from the genome of jellyfish and introduced into the genomes of other animals. The results turned out to be quite unusual: for example, mice whose genotype was changed in this way began to grow green hairs.
Poisonous jellyfish - Sea Wasp
Today, more than three thousand jellyfish are known, and many of them are far from harmless to humans. All types of jellyfish have stinging cells “charged” with poison. They help to paralyze the victim and deal with him without any problems. Without exaggeration, a jellyfish called the Sea Wasp poses a mortal danger to divers, swimmers, and fishermen. The main habitat of such jellyfish is warm tropical waters, there are especially many of them off the coast of Australia and Oceania.
Transparent bodies of pale blue color are invisible in warm water quiet sandy bays. Small size, namely, up to forty centimeters in diameter, also does not attract special attention. Meanwhile, the poison of one individual is enough to send about fifty people to heaven. Unlike their phosphorescent counterparts, sea wasps can change direction of movement, easily finding careless swimmers. The poison that enters the victim’s body causes paralysis of smooth muscles, including the respiratory tract. Being in shallow water, a person has a small chance of being saved, but even if health care was provided in a timely manner and the person did not die from suffocation; deep ulcers form in the places of the “bites”, causing severe pain and do not heal for many days.
Dangerous little ones - Irukandji jellyfish
Similar effect on human body, with the only difference that the degree of damage is not so deep, are the tiny Irukandji jellyfish, described by Australian Jack Barnes in 1964. He, as a true scientist who stands up for science, experienced the effect of poison not only on himself, but also on his own son. Symptoms of poisoning - severe headache and muscle pain, convulsions, nausea, drowsiness, loss of consciousness - are not fatal in themselves, but the main risk is a sharp increase in blood pressure from a man who personally met Irukandji. If the victim has problems with the cardiovascular system, then the likelihood of death is quite high. The size of this baby is about 4 centimeters in diameter, but its thin spindle-shaped tentacles reach 30-35 centimeters in length.
Bright beauty - Physalia jellyfish
Another very dangerous inhabitant of tropical waters for humans is Physalia - the Sea Boat. Her umbrella is colored bright colors: blue, violet, purple and floats on the surface of the water, so it is visible from afar. Entire colonies of attractive sea “flowers” attract gullible tourists, beckoning them to pick them up as quickly as possible. This is where the main danger lurks: long, up to several meters, tentacles, equipped with a huge number of stinging cells, are hidden under the water. The poison acts very quickly, causing severe burns, paralysis and disturbances in the functioning of the cardiovascular, respiratory and central nervous systems. If the meeting took place at great depth or simply far from the shore, then its outcome could be the saddest.
Giant Jellyfish Nomura - Lion's Mane
The real giant is the Nomura Bell, also called Lion's mane for some external resemblance to the king of beasts. The diameter of the dome can reach two meters, and the weight of such a “baby” reaches two hundred kilos. Lives on Far East, in the coastal waters of Japan, off the coast of Korea and China.
A huge hairy ball, falling into fishing nets, damages them, causing damage to fishermen and striking them themselves when they try to free themselves. Even if their venom is not fatal to humans, meetings with the “Lion’s Mane” rarely take place in a friendly atmosphere.
Hairy Cyanea - the largest jellyfish in the ocean
One of the most large jellyfish considered Cyanea. Living in cold waters, it reaches largest sizes. The most gigantic specimen was discovered and described by scientists at the end of the 19th century in North America: its dome was 230 centimeters in diameter, and the length of the tentacles turned out to be 36.5 meters. There are a lot of tentacles, they are collected in eight groups, each of which has from 60 to 150 pieces. It is characteristic that the dome of the jellyfish is divided into eight segments, representing a kind of octagonal star. Fortunately, they do not live in the Azov and Black Seas, so you don’t have to worry about them when going to the sea to relax.
Depending on the size, the color also changes: large specimens colored bright purple or purple, smaller ones - in orange, pink or beige. Cyaneas live in surface waters, rarely descending into the depths. The poison is not dangerous to humans, causing only an unpleasant burning sensation and blisters on the skin.
Using jellyfish in cooking
The number of jellyfish living in the seas and oceans of the globe is truly enormous, and not a single species is in danger of extinction. Their use is limited by mining capabilities, but people have long been using beneficial features jellyfish for medicinal purposes and enjoy them taste qualities in cooking. In Japan, Korea, China, Indonesia, Malaysia and other countries, jellyfish have long been eaten, calling them “crystal meat”. Its benefits are due to the high content of protein, albumin, vitamins and amino acids, and microelements. And when properly prepared, it has a very refined taste.
Jellyfish “meat” is added to salads and desserts, sushi and rolls, soups and main courses. In a world where population growth is steadily threatening the onset of famine, especially in underdeveloped countries, protein from jellyfish can be a good help in solving this issue.
Jellyfish in medicine
The use of jellyfish for the manufacture of medicines is typical, to a greater extent, in those countries where their use as food has long ceased to be a subject of surprise. For the most part, these are countries located in the coastal areas, where jellyfish are directly harvested.
In medicine, preparations containing processed jellyfish bodies are used to treat infertility, obesity, baldness and gray hair. The poison extracted from stinging cells helps to cope with diseases of the ENT organs and normalize blood pressure.
Modern scientists are struggling to find a drug that can defeat cancerous tumors, without excluding the possibility that jellyfish will also help in this difficult fight.
“...The whole sea is burning with fires. Blue ones play on the crests of the waves gems. In those places where the oars touch the water, deep shiny stripes light up with a magical shine. I touch the water with my hand, and when I take it back, a handful of glowing diamonds falls down, and gentle, bluish, phosphorescent lights burn for a long time on my fingers. Today is one of those magical nights about which fishermen say: “The sea is on fire!”
(A.I. Kuprin.)
Have you ever seen such a picture when you were on vacation at sea? Is it really an amazing phenomenon? Today I will tell you why does the sea glow?
The ability of living beings to glow is called bioluminescence. Can glow mushrooms, fireflies, some types of jellyfish and fish. The mechanism of luminescence is similar in all organisms. They all have luminescent cells which contain the substance luciferin. Under the influence of oxygen, it is oxidized, and light quanta are released.
Bioluminescence in jellyfish.
Glow of a ctenophore.
The glow of coastal waters, so superbly described by Alexander Kuprin, evokes phyto- and zooplankton. These could be ctenophores, tiny crustaceans. But most often, an even and strong glow is due to massive development microscopic algae– dinoflagellates, namely the planktonic alga Nochesvetka (Noctiluca scintillans). It can only be seen through a microscope. The nightglow's body is a transparent cell with a tail-flagellum. During per liter of sea water can be found several million nightlight cells! It is thanks to this that the sea burns with lights.
Night Light Algae (Noctiluca scintillans)
Massive accumulation of nightglow.
In our country you can see this magic of nature in the Black, Azov and Okhotsk seas. It's better to watch him on quiet, warm, dark nights, when after the storm comes complete calm. The peak of the glow occurs at end of July – September– period of massive summer-autumn development of plankton. Maybe this is why World Maritime Day is celebrated on September 24, when the sea is so elegant?! :) The spectacle of the shining sea is one of the most fascinating natural phenomena. I wish you to be lucky enough to see it!
Bioluminescence (translated from Greek “bios” - life, and Latin “lumen” - light) is the ability of living organisms to emit light. This is one of the most amazing phenomena. It is not found very often in nature. What does it look like? Let's watch:
10. Glowing plankton
Photo 10. Glowing plankton, MaldivesGlowing plankton in Lake Gippsland, Australia. This glow is nothing more than bioluminescence - chemical processes in the body of animals during which the released energy is released in the form of light. The phenomenon of bioluminescence, amazing in its nature, was lucky not only to see, but also to be photographed by photographer Phil Hart.
9. Glowing mushrooms
The photo shows Panellus stipticus. One of the few mushrooms with bioluminescence. This type of mushroom is quite common in Asia, Australia, Europe and North America. Grows in clumps on logs, stumps and trunks deciduous trees, especially on oaks, beeches and birches.
8. Scorpio
The photo shows a scorpion glowing under ultraviolet light. Scorpios do not emit their own light, but they do glow under the invisible emission of neon light. The thing is that in the exoskeleton of a scorpion there is a substance that emits its light under ultraviolet radiation.
7. Glow worms Waitomo Caves, New Zealand
In New Zealand, the Waitomo Cave is home to luminous mosquito larvae. They cover the ceiling of the cave. These larvae leave threads of glowing mucus, up to 70 per worm. This helps them catch flies and midges, which they feed on. In some species, such threads are poisonous!
6. Glowing jellyfish, Japan
Photo 6. Glowing jellyfish, Japan An amazing sight could be seen in Toyama Bay in Japan - thousands of jellyfish washed up on the shore of the bay. Moreover, these jellyfish live on great depths, and during the breeding season they rise to the surface. At this moment they were brought to land in huge numbers. Externally, this picture is very reminiscent of glowing plankton! But these are absolutely two different phenomena.
5. Glowing mushrooms (Mycena lux-coeli)
What you see here is glowing mushrooms Mycena lux-coeli. They grow in Japan, during the rainy season, on fallen Chinquapin trees. These mushrooms emit light thanks to a substance called luciferin, which oxidizes and produces this intense greenish-white glow. It's very funny that, in Latin, Lucifer means “light of the giver.” Who would have known! These mushrooms live only a few days and die when the rains stop.
4. Glow of the ostracod Cypridina hilgendorfii, Japan
Cypridina hilgendorfii is the name given to shellfish, tiny (for the most part no more than 1-2 mm), transparent organisms that live in the coastal waters and sands of Japan. They glow thanks to the substance luciferin.
An interesting fact is that during the Second World War, the Japanese collected these crustaceans in order to obtain light at night. After soaking these organisms in water, they begin to glow again.
3. Glowing fireflies
Photo 3. Long exposure photograph of fireflies This is what firefly habitats look like, taken with a long exposure. Fireflies blink to attract the attention of the opposite sex.
2. Glowing bacteria
Glowing bacteria - amazing a natural phenomenon. Light in bacteria is created in the cytoplasm. They live mainly in sea water, and less often on land. One bacterium emits a very weak, almost invisible light on its own, but when in large quantities, then they glow with a more intense, very pleasing to the eye blue light.
1. Jellyfish (Aequorea Victoria)
In the 1960s, Japanese-American scientist Osamu Shimomura at Nagoya University identified the luminescent protein aequorin from the equorea jellyfish (Aequorea victoria). Shimomura showed that aequorin initiates with calcium ions without oxygen (oxidation). In other words, the light-emitting fragment is not a separate substrate in itself, but a substrate tightly bound to the protein. This in turn made a huge contribution not only to science, but also to medicine. In 2008, Shimomura was awarded Nobel Prize for your efforts.
V. LUNKEVICH.
Valeryan Viktorovich Lunkevich (1866-1941) - biologist, teacher, outstanding popularizer.
Rice. 1. Night light "Sea candle".
Rice. 3. Angler fish.
Rice. 4. Glowing fish.
Rice. 6. Coral branch with glowing polyps.
Rice. 5. Glowing cephalopod.
Rice. 7. Female firefly.
Rice. 8. Luminous organ in a cephalopod: a - light part, reminiscent of a lens; b - inner layer of luminous cells; c - layer of silver cells; d - layer of dark pigment cells.
Who among us has not had the opportunity to admire the warm summer evening greenish lights of fireflies, like arrows cutting through the air in different directions? But how many people know that not only some bugs, but also other animals, especially the inhabitants of the seas and oceans, are endowed with the ability to glow?
Everyone who spent the summer on the shores of the Black Sea has more than once witnessed one of the most beautiful spectacles of nature.
Night is coming. The sea is calm. Small ripples slide across its surface. Suddenly, a light strip flashed on the crest of one of the nearest waves. Behind her flashed another, a third... There are many of them. They will sparkle for a moment and fade along with the broken wave, only to light up again. You stand and look, enchanted, at the millions of lights flooding the sea with their light, and you ask - what’s the matter?
This riddle has long been solved by science. It turns out that light is emitted by billions of microscopic creatures known as nightlights (Fig. 1). Warm summer water favors their reproduction, and they then rush across the sea in countless hordes. In the body of each such nocturnal light, yellowish balls are scattered, which emit light.
Let us now “move forward” to one of the tropical seas and plunge into its waters. Here the picture is even more magnificent. Here some strange animals float either in a sedate crowd or alone: they look like umbrellas or bells made of dense jelly. These are jellyfish: large and small, dark and glowing in blue, green, yellow, or reddish. Among these moving multi-colored “lanterns” a giant jellyfish, whose umbrella is sixty to seventy centimeters across, floats calmly, slowly (Fig. 2). Fishes emitting light are visible in the distance. The moon fish rushes headlong, like the moon among other luminous star fish. One of the fish has brightly burning eyes, another has a process on its head, the top of which resembles a lit electric lamp, the third has a long cord with a “flashlight” at the end dangling from the upper jaw (Fig. 3), and some luminous fish are completely filled with radiance thanks to special organs located along their body like light bulbs strung on a wire (Fig. 4).
We go down below - to where the light of the sun no longer penetrates, where, it would seem, there should be eternal, impenetrable darkness. And here and there “lights are burning”; and here the darkness of the night is cut through by rays emanating from the body of various luminous animals.
On seabed, among the stones and algae, glowing worms and mollusks swarm. Their naked bodies are dotted with shiny stripes, spots or specks, like diamond dust; on the ledges of underwater rocks there are starfish flooded with light; The crayfish immediately dives into all corners of its hunting territory, illuminating the path in front of it with huge, spyglass-like eyes.
But the most magnificent of all is one of the cephalopods: it is completely bathed in rays of bright blue color (Fig. 5). One moment - and the light went out: as if an electric chandelier had been turned off. Then the light appears again - at first weak, then more and more bright, now it is cast in purple - the colors of the sunset. And then it goes out again, only to flare up again for a few minutes with the color of delicate green foliage.
IN underwater world You can also see other colorful paintings.
Let us remember the well-known sprig of red coral. This branch is the home of very simple animals - polyps. Polyps live in vast colonies that look like bushes. Polyps build their home from lime or horny substance. Such dwellings are called polypnyaks, and a branch of red coral is a particle of a polypnyak. Underwater rocks in some places are completely covered with a whole grove of coral bushes of different shapes and colors (Fig. 6) with many tiny chambers in which sit hundreds of thousands of polyps - animals that look like little white flowers. On many polyp forests, the polyps seem to be engulfed in flames formed by numerous lights. The lights sometimes burn unevenly and intermittently, changing color: they will suddenly sparkle with a violet light, then turning into red, or they will sparkle with a pale blue and, having run through a whole range of transitions from blue to green, freeze at the color of emerald or go out, forming black shadows around themselves, and there again the iridescent sparks will flare up.
There are luminous animals among the inhabitants of land: these are almost entirely beetles. There are six species of such beetles in Europe. In tropical countries there are much more of them. They all make up one family of lampyrids, that is, fireflies. The “illumination” sometimes performed by these bugs is a very spectacular spectacle.
One night I was on a train from Florence to Rome. Suddenly my attention was attracted by sparks flying near the carriage. At first, they could be mistaken for sparks emitted by a locomotive chimney. Looking out the window, I saw that our train was rushing forward through a light, transparent cloud woven from tiny golden-blue lights. They sparkled everywhere. They circled, pierced the air with radiant arcs, cut it in different directions, crossed, sank and flared up again in the darkness of the night, falling to the ground in a fiery rain. And the train rushed further and further, shrouded in a magical veil of lights. This unforgettable spectacle lasted for five minutes, or even more. Then we escaped from the cloud of burning dust particles, leaving them far behind us.
These were myriads of fireflies, our train crashed into the midst of these inconspicuous-looking insects, gathered on a quiet, warm night, apparently in mating season own life. (A similar phenomenon can be observed not only in Mediterranean countries, but also here in Russia. If you arrive by train on a warm and not rainy evening in the second half of summer Black Sea coast, observe the extravaganza described by the author in the vicinity of Tuapse. Due to the many tunnels, the abundance of turns and the single-track track, the train does not go very fast, and the flight of fireflies is a fascinating sight. - Yu.M.)
Certain species of fireflies emit light of relatively high intensity. There are fireflies that glow so brightly that on a dark horizon from a distance you cannot immediately determine whether it is a star or a firefly in front of you. There are species in which both males and females glow equally well (for example, Italian fireflies). Finally, there are also types of beetles in which the male and female glow differently, although they look the same: in the male, the luminescent organ is better developed and acts more energetically than in the female. When the female is underdeveloped, has only rudimentary wings or no wings at all, and the male is developed normally, then something different is observed: in the female, the luminescent organs function much stronger than in the male; the more underdeveloped the female is, the more motionless and helpless she is, the brighter her luminous organ. The best example The so-called “Ivan’s worm” may serve here, which is not a worm at all, but a larva-like female of a special species of firefly beetles (Fig. 7). Many of us admired its cold, even light breaking through the foliage of bushes or grass. But there is an even more interesting sight - the glow of a female of another species of firefly. Inconspicuous during the day, resembling an annelid worm, at night it literally bathes in the rays of its own magnificent bluish-white light thanks to the abundance of luminous organs.
However, it is not enough to admire the glow of living beings. It is necessary to know what causes the glow of the inhabitants of the underwater and ground world and what role it plays in the lives of animals.
Inside each nightglow, using a microscope, you can see many yellowish grains - these are luminous bacteria living in the body of the nightglow. By emitting light, they make these microscopic animals glow. The same must be said about the fish, whose eyes are like burning lanterns: their glow is caused by luminous bacteria that have settled in the cells of the luminous organ of this fish. But the glow of animals is not always associated with the activity of luminous bacteria. Sometimes the light is produced by special luminous cells of the animal itself.
The luminescent organs of different animals are built according to the same type, but some are simpler, while others are more complex. While luminous polyps, jellyfish and starfish The whole body glows; some breeds of crayfish have only one light source - large eyes, similar to a telescope. However, among luminous animals, one of the first places rightfully belongs to cephalopods. These include the octopus, which has the ability to change the color of its outer coverings.
What organs cause the glow? How are they built and how do they work?
The skin of the cephalopod contains small, oval-shaped hard bodies. The front part of this body, looking outward, is completely transparent and is something similar to the lens of the eye, and the rear, most of it, is wrapped in a black shell of pigment cells (Fig. 8). Directly under this shell lie silvery cells in several rows: they form the middle layer of the luminous organ of the mollusk. Beneath it are complex shaped cells that resemble the nerve elements of the retina. They line the inner surface of this body ("apparatus"). They also emit light.
So, the “light bulb” of a cephalopod consists of three different layers. Light is released by the cells of the inner layer. Reflecting from the silvery cells of the middle layer, it passes through the transparent end of the “light bulb” and goes out.
Another interesting detail in this luminous “apparatus”. In the skin of a cephalopod, next to each such body, there is something similar to a concave mirror or reflector. Each such reflector in the “light bulb” of a mollusk consists, in turn, of two kinds of cells: dark pigment cells that do not transmit light, in front of which there are rows of silvery cells that reflect light.
While the body lives, various chemical processes take place in its cells. In connection with these processes, various forms of energy arise in the body: thermal, thanks to which it warms up; mechanical, on which its movements depend; electrical, which is associated with the work of his nerves. Light is also a special type of energy that arises under the influence of the internal work that takes place in the body. The substance of luminous bacteria and those cells from which the luminous apparatuses of animals are composed, when oxidized, emits light energy.
What role does glow play in the lives of animals? It has not yet been possible to answer this question in each individual case. But there can hardly be any doubt about the benefits of glowing for many animals. Glowing fish and crayfish live at such depths where sunlight does not penetrate. In the dark, it is difficult to discern what is happening around, track down prey and escape from the enemy in time. Meanwhile, luminous fish and crayfish are sighted and have eyes. The ability to glow makes their life easier.
In addition, we know how some animals are attracted to light. A fish with something like a light bulb sticking out of its head, or an anglerfish with a long, cord-like tentacle “with a flashlight” at the end, use luminous organs to attract prey. The cephalopod is even happier in this regard: its changeable, iridescent light attracts some, frightens others. Some varieties of small luminous crustaceans, in a moment of danger, emit jets of luminous substance, and the resulting luminous cloud hides them from the enemy. Finally, in some animals, glowing serves as a means of finding and attracting one sex of an animal to another: males thus find females or, conversely, attract them to themselves. Consequently, the glow of animals is one of the adaptations that are so rich in Live nature, one of the weapons in the struggle for existence.
Glow is considered a common phenomenon in nature. Therefore, the ability to emit light through a simple chemical reaction, or bioluminescence, is found in at least 50 various types mushrooms, fireflies and even terrifying sea creatures. With the help of this reaction, luminous creatures derive many benefits for themselves: they drive away predators, attract prey, rid their cells of oxygen, or simply cope with existence in the eternal darkness of the depths of the ocean.
One way or another, luminescence is one of the most ingenious tools of life, and we will present you a list of the most unusual and strange creatures, capable of glowing in the dark. Many of these species are currently on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
Female and male monkfish
Hell Squid
Glowing jellyfish
There are so many unusual and amazing creatures you won’t find in the sea or in the depths of the ocean. The following green-rimmed purple creatures live in Pacific Ocean off the coast North America. These jellyfish are capable of generating two types of glow at once. Bioluminescent has a purple-blue glow and is produced by a chemical reaction between calcium and protein. And this reaction, in turn, causes a glow around the jellyfish’s rim, forming a green fluorescent protein, and then a green glow. Scientists widely use this feature of the creature to study the visualization of processes in the body. 
firewater
Surely few people know that in nature there is a phenomenon that can be compared to a luminous ocean. However, no one would refuse to watch the bright blue neon surf of the ocean with their own eyes. The thing is that the water is filled with dinoflagellates, single-celled planktonic creatures with tails, which are distributed over impressive areas off the coast. Scientists believe that these creatures have inhabited our planet for a billion years, and for the last few millennia, puzzled people have been inclined to attribute this phenomenon to the mysterious magic of the sea gods. 
Big Mouth
To hunt for food, this fish first uses bioluminescence to produce fluorescence in the form of red lights in the area near its nose, and then emits red pulses to detect shrimp. When prey is found, an unlock signal is sent and the jaw is activated. The ingenious predator takes advantage of the fact that shrimp, like many other inhabitants of the sea, cannot recognize red light. 
Systellaspis shrimp
However, not all shrimp are so pliable and easily accessible to predators. For example, sistellaspis shrimp have excellent protection, including against largemouth. These shrimp disarm predators by spitting a nasty, glowing liquid from their tail right in front of their mouths. 
Coral wall
A 1,000-foot-tall blood wall made of glowing coral has been discovered in the Cayman Islands. This interesting phenomenon became possible due to the fact that many bioluminescent creatures found refuge here. Many scuba divers enthusiastically take pictures of how the corals transform their red color into an amazing green glow.