The first record of the deep-sea jellyfish Stygiomedusa gigantea (Scyphozoa: Semaeostomeae) from the tropical Southwestern Atlantic found on social media

ABSTRACT

We provide the first record of the giant deep-sea jellyfish Stygiomedusa gigantea (Browne, 1910) from the tropical Southwestern Atlantic, based on a posting made on social media. The image was found during data filtering through the hashtag #aguavivagigante (in English, #giantjellyfish) on Instagram. The jellyfish was seen floating motionless at the surface, presumed dead, off Bahia, Northeast Brazil (12°34’39”S; 38°00’19”W), on August 23^rd, 2016. Pygmy killer whales, Feresa attenuata Gray, 1874, were observed in the intermediate area and apparently interacting with the jellyfish. Observations of S. gigantea usually come from submersibles and ROVs. This is the first record extracted from social media, highlighting its potential use to complement information based on traditional scientific methods, and expanding the known geographic distribution of jellyfish. With the growth and development of social media in the coming years, we highlight its potential as a data source from citizen science. We also expect that social media will increasingly contribute to the knowledge of remarkable but poorly known species such as S. gigantea.

KEY WORDS:
Citizen science; iEcology; Instagram; Medusae

Stygiomedusa gigantea (Browne, 1910) is a jellyfish of Ulmaridae Haeckel, 1880 (Cnidaria: Scyphozoa: Semaeostomeae), and the unique species currently recognized in the genus (Matsumoto et al. 2003, Benfield and Graham 2010, Collins et al. 2022). This species is popularly known as the ‘giant phantom jellyfish’. It has a dark red-brown coloration and a large disc-shaped bell that can reach more than 1 m in diameter. Such coloration possibly helps Stygiomedusa to stay visually undetectable against the dark background of the deep sea, where the species is recurrently found (Russell and Rees 1960, Herring 2002, Johnsen 2005). Differently from most Semaeostomeae, this species does not have tentacles, but its four highly flattened oral arms can extend more than 10 m in length (Russell and Rees 1960, Benfield and Graham 2010, MBARI 2022). Two individuals observed in the Gulf of Mexico clinging to underwater structures led to the hypothesis that the jelly uses its long oral arms for the retention and digestion of plankton and small fishes (Benfield and Graham 2010).

Stygiomedusa gigantea has a cosmopolitan distribution, probably occurring in the mesopelagic and upper bathypelagic zones of all oceans, with a global average recorded depth of 657.6 m, but reaching more than 6600 m (Larson 1986, Benfield and Graham 2010, MBARI 2022). Little is known about its distribution, ecology, and behavior (Benfield and Graham 2010). This jellyfish has been recorded over a hundred times since its first sighting in 1899, most of them as a single individual (Russell 1959, Benfield and Graham 2010, Schnabel et al. 2021). In South America, this medusae was only previously recorded in Argentina at ~45°S (Oliveira et al. 2016, Schiariti et al. 2018). Within the framework of an ongoing investigation of jellyfish occurrences through internet data mining, here we provide the first record of S. gigantea from Brazil, based on a posting made on the Instagram platform, highlighting the great potential of social media to complement traditional methods on conspicuous marine species.

The whale watcher Adriano Paiva posted an underwater image of S. gigantea on July 06^th, 2019 on Instagram (Fig. 1A). The image was found during social media data mining, using the hashtag #aguavivagigante (in English, #giantjellyfish) on Instagram. The hashtag is a word or phrase preceded by a hash sign (#) used on social media platforms to identify digital content on a specific topic. The whale watcher was then contacted via Instagram direct messenger for additional images, more detailed information, and permission to use images and information for a specific publication illustrating the findings.

Figure 1
Image of Syigiomedusa gigantea individuals observed in (A) Brazil, 12°34’39”S, 38°00’19”W, at the water surface, present study; (B) Gulf of Mexico, 26°12.483’N, 91°26.583’W, at 1747 m, from Benfield and Graham (2010); (C) Gulf of California, 25°27.220’N, 109°50.170’, at 1300 m, from Drazen and Robinson (2004). The scale (= 1 m) is only applicable for Fig. 1A.

Adriano Paiva sent via Instagram direct messenger more detailed information and a video of the encounter with the giant S. gigantea (^{Supplementary material 1}). The observation was made on August 23^rd, 2016, during a research cruise coordinated by the Instituto Baleia Jubarte (Humpback Whale Project - Brazil). The vessel was off Praia do Forte, Bahia, at the continental slope, about 1000-2000 m in bottom depth (12°34’39”S; 38°00’19”W; Fig. 2). According to the whale watcher, the jellyfish appeared already dead at the moment of observation and pygmy killer whales, Feresa attenuata Gray, 1874 (Delphinidae), were swimming around the jellyfish at the water’s surface, apparently “nibbling” on it. From the images shared by Adriano Paiva, it is possible to observe that the individual was damaged.

Figure 2
Global distribution of documented records of Stygiomedusa gigantea in the literature. Sources: 1) Benfield and Graham (2010); 2) Parker et al. (2011, 2015); 3) Tarling et al. (2012); 4) Gasca and Loman-Ramos (2014); 5) Schiariti et al. (2018); 6) Schnabel et al. (2021); 7) Moore et al. (2023); 8) present study.

We could not obtain a sample of the whole animal for adequate morphological examination, or a sample of tissue for molecular analysis, but the picture of the organism observed in Brazil showed macro-morphological characteristics consistent with S. gigantea (Fig. 1). Those characteristics are: about 1 m in bell diameter, four long and flattened oral arms extended about 5 m in length, absence of marginal tentacles, and red-brownish coloration pattern, all of them confirmed by the observer, a person linked to science who can be considered trustworthy. These morphological characteristics are very distinctive and typical of S. gigantea (Russell and Rees 1960, Benfield and Graham 2010), remaining very little possibility that it belongs to other species. Image-based species identification poses some challenges and is often made at higher taxonomic ranks due to lower resolution and fewer details if compared with the identification of physical specimens (Horton et al. 2021), and it is especially true for images extracted from social media (Abreo et al. 2019, Read and Jean 2021). However, following the recommendations of image-based identification (Horton et al. 2021), we identified the specimen as S. gigantea, given the macro-morphology of the specimen can be identified as belonging to a known species and it is the single species currently recognized in the genus (Benfield and Graham 2010). Moreover, the species identification was validated by another expert with experience in the study of S. gigantea, Dr. Mark Benfield.

This record in Brazil is the first of S. gigantea from the tropical Southwestern Atlantic. Previous records in the South Atlantic include the Gulf of Guinea at 5°S (Repelin 1967) and seven records from near the Subantarctic Oceanic Domain (~50°S) (Larson 1986, Mianzan and Cornelius 1999, Schiariti et al. 2018). Stygiomedusa gigantea was seen about a hundred times worldwide. The greatest number of records of this jellyfish come from the Southern Ocean while observations at low latitudes are particularly rare (Fig. 2), highlighting the relevance of the present finding. Currently, relatively little is known about this giant medusae aside from its morphological description and sporadic sighting notes (Russell and Rees 1960, Harbison et al. 1973, Benfield and Graham 2010).

It is not possible to determine if the higher number of records of this species in the Southern Ocean and the fewer in other regions represent the distribution of this species or if it is due to uneven distribution of the explorations (Benfield and Graham 2010). The disproportions in the explorations likely contribute to a lack of observations in tropical regions, since studies are limited in these regions (Menegotto and Rangel 2018). However, temperate regions are generally well-studied and the challenges of accessing the deep-water habitat of S. gigantea must also be considered. This species is known to inhabit mostly the mesopelagic and bathypelagic zones, although can also be found in shallower waters (Larson 1986, Benfield and Graham 2010, MBARI 2022). It has porphyrin pigments, commonly occurring in low light levels due to the phototoxic effects of light exposure on the pigment (Herring 1972, Benfield and Graham 2010). When exposed to daylight photo decomposition can convert these porphyrins into toxic compounds (Herring 1972). But, at high latitudes, the low angle of incidence of the sun may permit the jellyfish to ascent to shallower depths without damage to porphyrin pigments, which may facilitate the increased record of this species in these regions (Benfield and Graham 2010). Conversely, migration into surface waters could bring adverse consequences in lower latitudes (Benfield and Graham 2010), possibly contributing to the relative scarcity of sightings for such a large species in these regions. In the present study, S. gigantea was observed at the water surface at 12°S, potentially because the specimen was dead. The continental shelf off Bahia is narrow and the winds are the major drivers of circulation in this region, varying seasonally (Castro and Miranda 1998, Amorim et al. 2011). There is no evident circulation pattern in this area to indicate that the jellyfish was transported from depths to water surface after death. Although it is speculative and can be rationally dismissed, a possible reason for the jelly fish to be found on the water surface could be its transport by the pygmy killer whales, since these cetaceans are found in deeper waters ranging from about 500 m to 2500 m in depth (McSweeney et al. 2009) and they were observed interacting with the jellyfish.

The majority of published S. gigantea records are from trawl or net samples, and direct observations of this large jellyfish come from submersibles and ROVs (Drazen and Robinson 2004, Benfield and Graham 2010, Tarling et al. 2012, Moore et al. 2023). This is the first record of this species extracted from social media. Although the investigations are still incipient, social media is already recognized as a useful tool in obtaining rare observations of marine species (O’Neil et al. 2019, McDavitt and Kyne 2020), including jellyfish (Kienberger and Pietro 2017, Rizgalla and Crocetta 2020, Nascimento et al. 2023). Marine citizen science is underrepresented in the literature, but it has been a growing field over recent decades, with an increase in the interest of marine users (Roy et al. 2012, Sandahl and Tøttrup 2020). The expanding and developing social media and its usage as a data source from citizen science is expected to help increase the knowledge of poorly known remarkable species such as S. gigantea.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are especially grateful to Adriano Paiva for kindly providing information, images, and permission to use the posting to illustrate the findings. We want also to thank Mark Benfield for confirming the species identification recorded in the present study. We thank Jeffrey Drazen and Mark Benfield for the permission to use Stygiomedusa gigantea images in this manuscript. We also thank the two anonymous reviewers for the suggested improvements in this manuscript. This study is part of LSN PhD thesis and was supported by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (process 88882.382983/2019-01). This research was approved for financing in the Universal Call of CNPq/MCTI/FNDCT no. 18/2021 (process 407644/2021-0).

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ADDITIONAL NOTES

• ZooBank register

  https://zoobank.org/3524C52E-1F14-43F8-BCD1-F30796B7C3A9

• How to cite this article

  Nascimento LS, Haddad MA, Nogueira Júnior M (2024) The first record of the deep-sea jellyfish Stygiomedusa gigantea (Scyphozoa: Semaeostomeae) from the tropical Southwestern Atlantic found on social media. Zoologia 41: e23082. https://doi.org/10.1590/S1984-4689.v41.e23082

• Published by

  Sociedade Brasileira de Zoologia at Scientific Electronic Library Online (https://www.scielo.br/zool)

Supplementary material 1

Video S1. Video showing the giant jellyfish Stygiomedusa gigantea observed on the water surface off Bahia, Northeast Brazil (12°34’39”S, 38°00’19”W), on August 23, 2016 (https://www.instagram.com/p/BzlnDMxht0y/?hl=pt-br/).

Author: Adriano Paiva (@adrianopaiva.biologo)

Data type: video.

Copyright notice: This dataset is made available under the Open Database License (http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/). The Open Database License (ODbL) is a license agreement intended to allow users to freely share, modify, and use this Dataset while maintaining this same freedom for others, provided that the original source and author(s) are credited.

Link: https://doi.org/10.3897/zoologia.41.e23082

Edited by

Editorial responsibility

Rosana M. da Rocha

Data availability

Data citations

Collins AG, Jarm G, Morandini AC (2022) World List of Scyphozoa. Stygiomedusa Russell 1959. https://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=135268 [Acessed: 22/11/2022]

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  07 June 2024
• Date of issue
  2024

History

• Received
  01 Nov 2023
• Accepted
  16 Mar 2024