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Whenever we're asked to examine a photograph or video of an animal that has been going viral on the internet, we often find some aspect of the creature has been exaggerated. Perhaps the animal appears larger than it is due to the use of forced perspective. Perhaps the picture has been digitally altered. Or perhaps the animal isn't an animal at all but a movie prop. So when we started receiving queries about a Giant jellyfish the size of a human, we had a hunch some aspect of the footage would be amiss: Turns out this is a genuine photograph of a very large barrel jellyfish (Rhizostoma pulmo). This picture was posted by Lizzie Daly, a wildlife biologist, who was filming a series of underwater adventures for the Wild Ocean Week fundraising project. The above-displayed photograph was snapped by her diving partner, Dan Abbott, off the coast of England near the town of Falmouth in July 2019. Abbott posted several other photographs of this jellyfish to his Instagram page: In a video of the encounter posted to her Facebook page, Daly explains: We just swam with a giant barrel jellyfish. I've never seen a jellyfish that big. It was the size of my body. That was the best thing I've ever done. Daly elaborated on the encounter in an article published by the Guardian: Daly estimated that the jellyfish was about 1.5 meters in length (about 5 feet). While this is certainly a large barrel jellyfish, it's not even close in size to the largest jellyfish in the ocean, the lion's mane jellyfish (Cyanea capillata), or Giant jellyfish, whose total body length can exceed 120 feet long. To learn more about Daly's project, or Wild Ocean Week, you can check out her page here:
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