Abstract
THE communications to NATURE of Mr. Archer (vol. xxiv. p. 307), and of Mr. Alexander Agassiz (vol. xxiv. p. 509), on the subject of Medusæ lying upon the bottom with their tentacles upward, lead me to forward some observations which I made on a similar habit of Medusæ in the island of Simbo, one of the Solomon Islands. The Medusa in question frequents a small mangrove swamp, which lies inclosed in the low point that forms the south shore of the anchorage. Numbers of these animals of a large and dirty-white colour were lying lazily on the mud at the bottom of the water, which varied in depth from one to three feet, with their umbscllas lowermost, and a magnificent mass of arboreacent tentacles well displayed. When one of them was disturbed and turned over with a stick, it immediately began to contract the umbrella, until, after swimming a short distance, it resumed its former position on the bottom, of tentacles upward. The dark mud which formed the bottom of the swamp was composed of decayed vegetable matter—low confervoid growths, and a few infusoria and living diatoms. But I invariably observed, after raising several of these Medusæ from the bottom, that a layer of white sand covered over the place where each had lain, its light colour forming a marked contrast with the dark mud around. The form of these patches of sand corresponded with the outline of the animal; but when the Modusa lay in its usual position, the umbrella completely concealed them from view. The sand was sometimes fine, at other times coarse, and was derived from the coral and tracbytic rocks in the vicinity, with occasionally fragments of shells intermingled. The sand did not adhere to the surface of the umbrella.
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GUPPY, H. Habits of Scypho-Medusæ. Nature 27, 31 (1882). https://doi.org/10.1038/027031a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/027031a0
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