Beach Trip Round 2: Microscope Madness

We had a wonderful time with the microscope, at any rate! 

We saw zooplankton and phytoplankton, to be sure, but the high water mark was when the kids caught a repulsively  surprisingly large jellyfish. 

I had brought gloves, in the hopes of finding one! 

Let me preface this with two statements: 1. Jellyfish are a harmful and invasive species. 2. Jellyfish have no nerves or pain centers. 

The kids had fished the jelly out with a net.  As it was revoltingly excessively large, it began to lose structural integrity almost immediately.

I tried to take a sample of the dome and a separate sample of the tentacles (with a spoon and bowl, if that doesn't gross you out too much).  I ended up getting all tentacle all the time, but that was the more interesting find anyway.

Unfortunately, my microscope does not have camera, and what we saw was a bit nicer than this. 

We saw chrysanthemum shaped clusters of stinging cells. Larger empty cells fringed the outside, tiny new cells clustered at the center, and in between were cells with what looked like large convoluted nuclei.

Those convolutions were actually the coiled up "harpoons" of the stinging cells!!  How cool is that?  Even as someone who despises is not fond of jellyfish, I found the cell clusters weirdly beautiful.