Recently, Wildlife Trust of India’s (WTI) researchers stumbled upon something unique! It was during their routine field visit to a small town named Armabada in Gujarat, that the research team noticed a few small boondocks. A bridge separated the water body from the Gulf of Kutch, with the only water exchange happening through a canal below the bridge.
Much intrigued at what could be in this ‘Lake’ a couple of WTI marine biologists took snorkeling kits armed with an underwater camera and started to shovel the secrets of this ‘Lake’. At the first dip was close to the road bridge, they were surprised to find huge mangrove snappers and silver biddies curiously coming close to them and nibbling their skin.
As they snorkeled further, they realised that the bottom was matted with algae with something pulsating around them. A closer look revealed that it was jellyfish. Further down the lake it was as if the whole bottom was carpeted with jellyfish. It was a beautiful sight and the researchers had never encountered such big bloom of jellyfish before! Back at the field camp they identified the jellyfish as ‘upside down jellyfish’ (Cassiopea sp).
Much intrigued at what could be in this ‘Lake’ a couple of WTI marine biologists took snorkeling kits armed with an underwater camera and started to shovel the secrets of this ‘Lake’. At the first dip was close to the road bridge, they were surprised to find huge mangrove snappers and silver biddies curiously coming close to them and nibbling their skin.
As they snorkeled further, they realised that the bottom was matted with algae with something pulsating around them. A closer look revealed that it was jellyfish. Further down the lake it was as if the whole bottom was carpeted with jellyfish. It was a beautiful sight and the researchers had never encountered such big bloom of jellyfish before! Back at the field camp they identified the jellyfish as ‘upside down jellyfish’ (Cassiopea sp).
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