A Japanese underwater photographer recently shared an incredible video on Twitter showing a transparent organism with a hint of green swimming in the deep blue sea. Many netizens were amazed and asked, “Is that a sliced cucumber?” The video has received over 15,000 likes and more than 1.7 million views.
Nana Trunk (@Aduncus7), a marine photographer from Miyakojima, Japan, frequently uploads photographs and videos of wild dolphins and whales while snorkeling. She just discovered a “cucumber slice jellyfish,” which is transparent with green edges. The jellyfish kept swimming in the sea, but when Nana approached it, it stopped moving. Some internet users assume that this is a defense strategy, with the creature pretending to be dead or disguised as seaweed to protect itself.
In actuality, the “little cucumber” in the movie is a deep-sea organism from the Cestidae family, which lives in tropical and subtropical oceans and moves by contracting their bodies. The English term for this exquisite object is “Venus girdle.” Cestidae jellyfish are difficult to keep in captivity, which makes them tough to observe in aquariums.
Many netizens first learned about this fascinating marine organism from the video, which they described as “looking like a vertically sliced cucumber.” “It’s incredible that a jellyfish can resemble this!” “I don’t know if it’s imitating the swaying seaweed, but it’s cute,” and “Maybe it’s pretending to be dead, haha.”
According to Japanese media accounts, it is still unclear why the Cestidae jellyfish in the video suddenly stopped moving. However, given its state at the time and the circumstances surrounding the filming, it may have sensed something approaching and attempted to imitate seaweed.
