Swarms of jellyfish invade Crimean shore in a rare natural phenomena

Swarms of Jellyfish invaded the Black sea in unusual natural display in Cremia. The photos which have gone viral on social media show innumerable jellyfish of the Aurelia genus lurking on the shores of Balaklava Bay in the Russian annexed Crimea. Reportedly, while jellyfish are fairly common in the area, such large numbers are fairly unusual at this time of the year.

Transported due to southeasterly wind

Boris Aninsky, a researcher at the AO Kovalevsky Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas said that the jellyfish were likely transported to the shores by a southeasterly wind. He added that if the wind had been blowing in the opposite direction, the jellyfish would have probably ended up in Sevastopol, the largest city on the Crimean Peninsula. There are two types of jellyfish in the Black Sea; those that have accumulated in Balaklava are Aurelia jellyfish which feed on plankton and are not dangerous, he revealed.

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He also said that such an accumulation is an unusual phenomenon in winter, most often the peak biomass of jellyfish off the coast of Crimea reaches from March to July. Now in Balaklava, there is a generation of jellyfish, preserved from last fall and gradually dying. In general, it just seems that there are a lot of jellyfish — this year there were quite a few of them.

Aurelia Jellyfish also called Moon Jellyfish, are found throughout the world’s oceans. These jellyfish can be recognised by four horseshoe-shaped gonads that are visible through their translucent, shallow, dome-shaped bell. Also, a few months ago, in a rare encounter, a diver came across a colossal ambling jellyfish while diving off the coast of Cornwall in Britain. 

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