Jellyfish are aquatic zooplankton that contain toxins that can be poisoned if their antennae touch humans. If swimming with thousands of jellyfish is what it's like, one might say, it's horrible.
However, in Palau, an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, there is a jellyfish lake. The lake is inhabited by thousands of jellyfish. And where jellyfish do not sting people, it can also be said that they are free of toxins.
Where do so many jellyfish in the lake come from? Why do they live in harmony with humans?
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the beautiful Palau Archipelago</h1>
The Palau Archipelago is located in the endless western Pacific Ocean. It is one of the gateways of the Pacific Ocean to Southeast Asia. It consists of more than 200 volcanic islands and coral islands such as Big Island, Koror Island, Belleu Island, and Anjia Island, with a total land area of 493 square kilometers. The islands are scattered from north to south on the surface of the 640-kilometer-long sea, like stars scattered in the blue ocean.
There is an ancient myth about the origins of the Palau Islands. According to legend, the Palau Archipelago was formed by the body of a young boy named Uber. Uber had no father or mother. When he was very young, he fell from the sky and was offered by the villagers here as the son of the gods. Uber was a gluttonous, sleepy, big eater, and bad temper. As time went on, the villagers began to hate the lazy guy and doubt his origins. In the end, everyone decided to kill Uber. Late one night, the villagers tied him up while he was sleeping and lit torches around him to put him to death. Because of the movement, Uber woke up from the dream and saw that the villagers were going to kill him, he struggled, and eventually his body was broken and scattered on the vast sea, forming today's Palau Archipelago.
The Palau Islands are a beautiful and fascinating tourist destination. Thanks to the clear, pollution-free waters and unique underwater landscapes, the waters here take on seven different colors, which is stunning. It is said that many advertising agencies in the world will choose to shoot commercials here.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > a magical lake</h1>
The most unique and beautiful scenery of the Palau Archipelago is Jellyfish Lake. From the sky, Jellyfish Lake is no different from other lakes. It looks like a calm mirror under the arches of tropical jungle. However, when people come to Jellyfish Lake, especially down to the bottom of Jellyfish Lake, they can experience another kind of magic.
Jellyfish Lake was discovered in 1982 and officially opened for sightseeing in 1985. The area is 57,000 square meters, and the depth of the lake is about 30 meters. It is said that there are more than 10 million jellyfish living here. They are mainly divided into two categories – golden jellyfish and moonlight jellyfish. The golden jellyfish is named after it, and it has a faint orange light on its body; the moon jellyfish is transparent. They live together in Jellyfish Lake, constituting a rare "jellyfish" miracle in the world.
When you go down into the lake, you encounter a lot of jellyfish. They gently touch your body, and their movements are so gentle; when you dive into the water, you can see a lot of "jellyfish dancers" floating in it, like fairies at the bottom of the lake, gently "dancing". The more you swim into the center of the lake, the more jellyfish you "dance" with.
From a distance, it looks like a large bowl of silver ear soup. Jellyfish come in large and small sizes, some orange-red, and some transparent pale white. The big jellyfish, which people could not hold together with their hands; the small jellyfish, like a small blister, slowly rose in the water. All jellyfish open their heads like "parachutes" and swim around drum after drum in the water, like a large airdrop paratrooper.
Amazingly, these jellyfish are "good-hearted" and never sting people. In addition to jellyfish, the lake also has a large number of silver-faced fish. They feed mainly on seaweed, but sometimes these fish will "open the meat" and catch some jellyfish as food.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > why jellyfish are not toxic</h1>
Jellyfish are large plankton in the ocean that often contain toxins. If they sting, the human body will be burned and swollen; if thousands of jellyfish stung at the same time, the human being will certainly be overwhelmed and life-threatening. Curiously, the jellyfish in jellyfish lakes never sting people. Instead, some careless tourists tend to let them "get hurt."
Could it be that the jellyfish here don't sting people? So where do the jellyfish here come from?
There is a local legend that when the moon is full, the god Palau will descend from the sky and bathe in the lake on the island. Every time Palau took a bath, he would take some jellyfish from the sea and put them in the lake to wipe his body. As time went on, there were more and more jellyfish in the lake, densely packing the entire lake. Palau once went to bathe by the lake when a jellyfish accidentally stabbed him. Palau was angry, and he used magic to eliminate jellyfish's stinging cells and toxins. Since then, the jellyfish in the lake have never stung again.
Of course, this is just a myth and legend!
The Palau Archipelago, where Jellyfish Lake is located, is located about 800 kilometers east of the Philippines. Palau is a very strange place. Its water surface is always calm and peaceful. However, this is the "home" of typhoons, many of which were "born" here and then became more powerful in their drifts. When we listen to the weather forecast during typhoon season, we often hear "Typhoon So-and-so this year was produced in the eastern Philippines", and the term "eastern Philippines" often refers to the Palau Islands region.
It has been speculated that jellyfish from Jellyfish Lake do not sting, which may be related to typhoon activity. Because the most basic condition for the formation of a typhoon is that the surface temperature of the seawater must be higher than 26.5 ° C, the temperature of the seawater at a depth of 60 meters should exceed this value. When the sea temperature is too high, the jellyfish do not adapt to the temperature, and even die in large quantities. In order to survive, they scrambled to escape to the lake on the island. Due to long-term living in the lake, its toxicity gradually disappears.
However, this claim is not convincing, because there is no waterway between the jellyfish lake and the sea, and the jellyfish in the sea cannot "fly" into the lake.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > crustal movements create jellyfish lakes</h1>
To understand the "identity" of these jellyfish, we must first understand how jellyfish lakes are formed.
Scientists have discovered that Jellyfish Lake is an inland lake on palau. It is surrounded by mountains and completely isolated from the water system outside. However, 12,000 years ago, it was once part of the ocean.
What's going on? It turns out that about 10,000 years ago, there was violent movement in the seabed crust. The enormous amount of energy causes the seabed around Palau to gradually rise. They emerge from the sea and become part of the island. The sunken seabed on which Jellyfish Lake is located is gradually cut off from the high seas and becomes an inland saltwater lake. After the birth of the new lake, under the scorching sun, the lake water is no longer as clear and blue as the seawater, but dark green; because there is no "foreign aid" supplement, the nutrient content in the lake water is decreasing. For a long time, many of the marine life remaining in the lake no longer adapted to it and gradually died out. Only one low-level marine organism, jellyfish, survives on a small number of microorganisms.
Jellyfish in lakes mainly rely on nutrients secreted by seaweed to sustain their lives. They take the whole lake for themselves and become the real masters of the place. Every day at noon, the jellyfish will float up for photosynthesis. At this time, the surface of the water is densely covered with jellyfish. They shimmer with golden light, dazzling and spectacular.
So, why don't the jellyfish here sting?
Scientists further investigated and found that the jellyfish in jellyfish lake not only do not bite people, but also do not have the toxins that ordinary jellyfish have. According to this analysis, because there are no natural enemies and dangers, these jellyfish live freely and comfortably, and their innate defense ability is somewhat degraded. For a long time, these guys have "lost" the "defensive weapon" left by their ancestors, the body toxin, and will not sting people.
Beautiful creatures are often poisonous, but Palau's jellyfish "break" this natural law, and Jellyfish Lake has a unique non-toxic jellyfish in the world.