A couple of weeks ago we made the first of two very successful visits to Whiteford on Gower where an unusual jellyfish species had me somewhat stumped. We are used to seeing the more common Barrel and Moon species washed up there but this individual was clearly something completely different.

P1080690 - Crystal Jellyfish,

Tonight I finally got chance to sit down and do some proper research which has led me to the surprising identification of the above as a Crystal Jellyfish. Usually found in the North West Pacific they are extremely uncommon anywhere in British waters let alone off the coast of Gower. The first recorded sighting in Scotland came in 2009 with Cornwall getting in on the act just a couple of months ago. Beyond these scant sightings it seems that the Crystal Jellyfish is a relative unknown so it’s worth keeping an eye out on the off-chance that there may be more of these rare creatures out there.


5 Comments

Unknown · July 3, 2018 at 11:46 am

Glad I found your informative post. I saw one of these in North Devon last week. I'd not seen one like this before, it's usually Moon Jellyfish I see. Thank you..��

Unknown · July 3, 2019 at 9:48 pm

I've seen one tonight at Caswell on the Gower. Came home and looked it up and it led me to this page.

ali · June 23, 2020 at 7:56 pm

Glad I found your informative post. I saw one of these in North Devon last week. I'd not seen one like this before, it's usually Moon Jellyfish I see. Thank you..
rare crystals

Anita · July 18, 2020 at 11:09 am

There are hundreds washes up on beach in Kessingland today.

Stuart · August 15, 2020 at 9:30 am

seen a few of them along with lots of Compass Jellyfish in the shallows of Pendower Beach, the south coast of Cornwall this week

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