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Jellyfish

Mauve Stinger

Pelagia noctiluca

Pelagia noctiluca (Forsskål, 1775) · Pelagiidae WoRMS 135305

Reference photos

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A small jellyfish with a deep, mushroom-shaped bell, pale red to mauve-brown or purple, whose upper surface is covered in warts full of stinging cells. Eight thin, hair-like tentacles trail from the bell margin, sometimes as far as 3 m, and four thick, frilled oral arms hang from the mouth tube at its centre. It has no seabed stage at all and lives its whole life in open water. It is uncommon around the British Isles but turns up over deep water off the west and north coasts, sometimes in swarms, and can glow brightly at night if disturbed. The sting is potent and painful, though limited in time and extent.

Depth

Mostly between the surface and 150 m, deeper by day at 300-500 m, exceptionally to 1,400 m

Size

Bell up to 12 cm across, commonly around 4-5 cm, with thin tentacles trailing as far as 3 m

Habitat

Oceanic, living in open water in warm and temperate seas; around Britain and Ireland mainly over deep water off the west and north coasts

Behaviour

Gathers in swarms; has no seabed stage in its life cycle and can glow brightly at night if disturbed

Diet

I eat

  • Small planktonic crustaceans, chiefly cladocerans and copepods, which make up about 90% of gut contents
  • Other small jellyfish and open-water sea squirts (pelagic ascidians)
  • Eggs and larvae of free-swimming and bottom-living animals, taken from the plankton

Where you'd find it

Mostly seen in the English Channel and the Celtic Sea, and only here and there elsewhere.

ChannelCeltic SeaNorth SeaIrish SeaW of IrelandW of Scotland
Often seenNow and thenWhere PEBL filmsBased on marine survey records (OBIS). Blank seas can mean nobody has looked there, not that the animal is absent.

Sources

Open-access references behind this page. Every statement on this page was read out of one of them; anything that could not be traced to a source was taken off the page rather than left standing. Each link was checked on the date shown, and confirmed then to be about this species.

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