Lion's Mane Jelly

[prunefoot]

This was last October while diving one of the bridge spans off PCB Florida, I was just off the bottom, right at the end of the span, looking into a hole in the structure, when I happened to notice a jellyfish string right beside me. I swam backward a little and looked up and there was this big ass lion's mane above me. It made for a pretty good video.
One of these got my then 10 year old daughter a few days later. She was covered totally in wetsuit but a string drifted across the top of her mouth and got her. She was a trooper though. She finished the dive and we didn't know until we were back on the boat. She wound up looking kind of like the joker for almost a week with a red swollen line going from the end of her mouth and up to her ear on each side.

 

[Skeptic14]

It might have been a Pink Meanie (drymonema larsoni), they are a newly discovered species (last decade) that is common in the GoM whereas the lion's mane is typically in colder more northern waters. I saw a couple on a few different dives and initially thought lion's mane until further research; they are pretty cool, cool video too.

 

[prunefoot]

It might have been a Pink Meanie (drymonema larsoni), they are a newly discovered species (last decade) that is common in the GoM whereas the lion's mane is typically in colder more northern waters. I saw a couple on a few different dives and initially thought lion's mane until further research; they are pretty cool, cool video too.

Ah thanks for the info. We saw lots of these that week. We saw a few at the surface while on the boat over the week and they did have a pinkish reddish tint in the middle of the top.

If you look at my profile pic, above and behind us you can see another one of them. I didn't notice it until I reviewed my photos.