Explore Sarah Quine’s underwater portfolio.

Jellyfish expert Lisa Gershwin, curator of natural science at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Tasmania, caught the unnamed species in early March while swimming near a Tasmanian jetty with a “phototank” — a small aquarium that makes it easier to photograph sea life.

The jellyfish does not emit its own light, as bioluminescent creatures do.

Rather, its rainbow glow emanates from light reflecting off the creature’s cilia, small hairlike projections that beat simultaneously to move the jellyfish through the water.

Though the glowing jelly is Gershwin’s 159th species discovery in Australia, she still finds the discovery “simply splendid.”

For one, the jelly is relatively large — 13cm long, but — the invertebrate is also incredibly fragile—it shatters as soon as it touches a net, she said.

More information here on the National Geographic site.

Nearly 200 pilot whales and a handful of bottlenose dolphins have beached at Naracoopa on the eastern side of King Island in Bass Strait.

By Monday afternoon only 54 of the 194 pilot whales were still alive, along with seven dolphins.

According to ABC News:

Chris Arthur from the Parks and Wildlife Service says he remains optimistic about their chances.

“It’s amazing, some will some die straight away, some will survive for days.”

“These are fairly robust animals, pilot whales, we experienced that in the past.

“While they’re alive there is a chance,” he said.

Mr Arthur says there is concern for whales close to shore.

“There’s quite a large number of animals still out at sea just off shore milling around.”

More than 150 King Island residents have been assisting with the rescue and have now been joined by Parks and Wildlife staff who flew in late this morning to take charge.

Nigel Burgess is one of the residents involved in trying to refloat the surviving 54 whales.

He has told ABC Local Radio they are on a flat section of the beach.

“It’s a matter of getting them into the water. It’s so shallow, getting them out,” he said.

King Island Council general manager Andrew Wardlaw says it is a community effort.

“Families, children, mums and dads, grandparents all here helping out doing their bit under the guidance of a local parks ranger,” he said.

While conditions were calm for rescuers this morning the Bureau of Meteorology says north-easterly winds of up to 30 knots are expected later in the day.

It is the fourth mass stranding in Tasmania’s north-west since November.

Anti-whaling ship the Steve Irwin is currently in pursuit of the Japanese ship Nisshin Maru in the Ross Sea, more than 2,000 nautical miles south-east of Tasmania.

The Sea Shepherd Society ship found the Japanese whaling fleet just before Christmas, but had to return to Hobart to refuel.

But they found a lucky break in the ice, and were able to track down the Nisshin Maru and harpoon vessels Yushin Maru Numbers 1 and 2 in the middle of the Ross Sea about 9.30am today.

Mr Watson said the vessel was engaged in full pursuit of the three ships and expected to keep them within view, despite contending with loose ice, strong winds and fog.

“When we found them this morning it looked like they were in the process of a whaling operation – the vessels were all stopped altogether.

“Then when they saw us, they began running.”

“As long as we’re chasing them they’re not going to kill whales,” he said.

{ABC-News]

Flinders Island airport broke the three-decade-old record, reaching 41.5 degrees just before 4pm today [01.30].

The previous high was 40.8 degrees, set in Hobart in 1976.

Tasmanian temperatures have been well above average.

Launceston Airport reached 37.2 degrees, making it the hottest day there since World War II.

In the north-west, Marrawah recorded 33 degrees, while at Fingal in the north-east the temperature hit 40.6 degrees.

Rescuers in north-west Tasmania are waiting on equipment to arrive from Hobart so they can try save survivors of a pod of about 50 stranded sperm whales in the state’s far north-west.

The mass stranding on the western-most point of Perkins Island near Smithton was reported to police last night.

It was originally thought only two had survived, but Chris Arthur from Parks and Wildlife said today eight whales were showing signs of life as the tide came in this morning.

Mr Arthur says it is the largest stranding of sperm whales he has seen and it will be a difficult rescue.

“What the crews can do is try and give the animals the best chance we can.”

“We’ve got gale force winds forecast and the weather doesn’t look as if it’s going to be kind.

In November, about 50 pilot whales died at nearby Stanley and another 155 stranded shortly after at Sandy Cape on the state’s west coast.

via ABC-News

UPDATE 01.24: Rescuers are administering palliative care to the last two sperm whales alive.

Three more whales died overnight and rescuers are not holding out much hope for the last two.

Rescuers have been working tirelessly to stabilise them but have been hampered by the remote location and difficulties in handling the whales, which are over 10 metres long.

Rescuer David Pemberton says they had been hoping to refloat the five remaining animals but woke to find three had died overnight.

He says the high swell is making it impossible to try to save the last two.

RIP 01.29: Sadly, none of the whales survived.

Only in Tasmania in summer!

Taken by dexodexo just a couple of weeks ago:

Enjoy his refreshing set of photos of a journey along Tasmania’s world-famous Overland Track in all its moods.

Editor’s note: If you would like to be featured here, simply upload your photographs to Flickr [signing up is free] and we’ll find them. We check regularly for new entries tagged with ‘Tasmania’ or, better still, ‘thisTasmania’.

The collaborative voyage of US and Australian researchers was led by chief scientists Dr Jess Adkins from the California Institute of Technology and Dr Ron Thresher from CSIRO’s Climate Adaptation and Wealth from Oceans Flagships.

“We set out to search for life deeper than any previous voyage in Australian waters,” Dr Thresher says. “We also gathered data to assess the threat posed by ocean acidification and climate change on Australia’s unique deep-water coral reefs.”

Click any image below to see larger version

“Our sampling documented the deepest known Australian fauna, including a bizarre carnivorous sea squirt, sea spiders and giant sponges, and previously unknown marine communities dominated by gooseneck barnacles and millions of round, purple-spotted sea anemones.”

All of these new species are located more than 2000 metres below the surface.

Vast fields of fossil corals were discovered below 1400 metres, and dated to more than 10,000 years old. The samples collected will be used to determine the periods over the last millions of years when reefs have existed south of Tasmania. They will also provide ancient climate data that contribute to models of regional and global climate change, based on historical circulation patterns in the Southern Ocean.

“Our sampling documented the deepest known Australian fauna, including a bizarre carnivorous sea squirt, sea spiders and giant sponges, and previously unknown marine communities dominated by gooseneck barnacles and millions of round, purple-spotted sea anemones.”

Modern-day deep-water coral reefs were also found, however there is strong evidence that this reef system is dying, with most reef-forming coral deeper than 1300 metres newly dead.

This week’s entry comes from shastadaisy. The title comes from a poem by Pablo Neruda:

Like love, like a medal,
I take in,
take in
south, north, violins…
the smell of waves.
I gather up,
endlessly,
painlessly,
I breathe.

Editor’s note: If you would like to be featured here, simply upload your photographs to Flickr [signing up is free] and we’ll find them. We check regularly for new entries tagged with ‘Tasmania’ or, better still, ‘thisTasmania’.