Page 41 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #11
P. 41
ONLINE
BLUE
PLANET II
WATCH A CLIP FROM THE SERIES
In
focus
High seas driter
Though part of the same hugely a student at Falmouth University,
diverse group of marine animals, after a mass stranding on beaches
the Cnidaria, the Portuguese- in south-west England. Her plan was
man-of-war, is not a jellyfish but to photograph them in their natural
siphonophore. Another surprise is environment, but for creative and
that each one is a colony made up safety reasons – the tentacles,
of four separate organisms, each which remain venomous even after
of which has a diferent function. death, are around 10m long and
The gas-filled ‘float’ keeps the armed with deadly stinging cells
entire structure at the surface of – she took several specimens to
the ocean, enabling it to drift vast an improvised pop-up salt-water
distances in search of food, as seen studio, handling them with latex
in BBC One’s Blue Planet II. gloves. (They were doomed to
Irene Mendez Cruz took this die and were being removed from
photograph in autumn 2017, while beaches due to public risk).
Photo:Irene Mendez Cruz
