Cassiopea

This is going to be a short one, frankly, because last weeks blog took a long, long, time. It was cool! And hit on news coming out that week (and also 150+ years ago) but it was a lot of scrounging through old documents and learning about yellow fever outbreaks and the unfortunate results. (Side epidemiology note- the big yellow fever outbreak in the Dry Tortugas was in 1877. —> The Dry Tortugas was part of a shipping/supply lane between Key West, Cuba, and New Orleans. —> New Orleans had a massive yellow fever epidemic in 1878.—>is it possible that the Dry Tortugas might have caused the spread of the disease northward to New Orleans?) But tangents aside, and speaking of learning about things:

Cassiopea.

My very scientific picture

I get to encounter a lot of science, a lot of history, and plenty of fun settings for awesome mysteries. I get to learn a lot. I get to make up a lot of alternate hypotheticals. (most of which I hope to call out so no one is tricked by the fiction.) But rarely do I get to jump in at the forefront of a new(ish) discovery. Which is what I did with a certain Jellyfish.

(Heavy disclaimer: I did not make this discovery, I very simply learned about it while it was happening and added it to the book. All credit goes to the authors of the paper cited at the bottom of the blog and plenty of other scientists who came before. I just got to add a fun fact and gush about it here.)

In Treasure off the Coast I made note of many different organisms which reside in the Dry Tortugas. But one creature mentioned multiple times is often overlooked (literally) by visitors to the park: Cassiopea. The upside-down jellyfish. Not to be confused with Cassiopeia, the sometimes upside-down constellation, or the probably never upside down Cassiopeia Quean of Ethiopia and mother of Andromeda. This is the brown or green creature tentacled monstrosity which frequently lives on the sea floor in the bottom of the moat around Fort Jefferson, (when it is not stagnant from years without circulation.)

I remember them being one of the many reasons I never wanted to “join the moat club” (accidentally fall into the moat. They were Jellyfish, and Jellyfish sting. But Cassiopea are special, you don’t have to come into contact with them to feel their sting. You just have to be near them. For a long time, people who are familiar with the species and the mangrove waters they usually inhabit have known that swimming near clusters of upside down jellyfish can result in itching, stinging, and a rash. My father would get it especially bad simply swimming around the outside of the moat at the Dry Tortugas. (imagine falling in!)

Now we know why it happens. I mention it in Treasure off the Coast. But we’ve only known for a little while.

I’ve been doing some research for book 3 recently, (yep, I’m writing another even though Specters of Mammoth Cave hasn’t released yet.) And stumbled across more material on everyone’s favorite mucus slinging jellyfish. Stinging Mucus, which is the entire point of this article. Hmm. It’s hard to share all of this fun stuff in proper order. So I guess I will rely upon a favored tactic of mine.

Start with the beginning:

Cassiopea is a species of “True Jellyfish” the term which separates them from posers like the Portuguese man o’war which is actually a colony of organisms that work together. Cassiopea is a simply a singular organism which teams up with others. This isn’t an anatomy lesson, or an ecology lesson, but there are some relevant facts preceding the fun topic. Namely, Cassiopea can sting, (they do have stinging cells,) and they can swim. (In fact, I found several papers related specifically to the pulsating movement they use to swim. ) But they spend most of their time upside-down (hence the common name) and team up with zooxanthellae who photosynthesize so they can produce nutrients together. This is why they are upside down: they want to give the creatures living in their tentacles enough sunlight.

Which: Big side tangent here:

Whoever named the Genus was a Genius, not only because (drawn the right way) their filly tentacles can kind of resemble constellations of stars, [whoever took the picture for the Wikipedia entry was also a genius because you can trace out the Cassiopeia constellation in the arms of the jellyfish there. Take a look: in the arms of the jelly) But also because, seen in that light, the name makes even more sense.

The constellation Cassiopeia is named after the Ethiopian, (Aethiopian) Queen of the same name. Supposedly, she bragged that she and her daughter were as beautiful as Nerieds, the sea nymph daughters of one of Poseidon’s pals. For this ego, somehow Andromeda was the one lashed to a rock in the ocean to be devoured by a sea monster, (don’t worry Perseus saves her.) Cassiopea, however was chained to a throne and chucked into the stars. Where she became my favorite W.

The reason this is genius because Cassiopeia the constellation is readily recognizable, first: Because her bright W shape is really easy to make out in the night sky. Second: because the constellation orbits the North Star, and thus throughout the night shifts from right side up, to upside down and vice versa. (like the Jellyfish which took her name.) It’s also genius, because of the general aquatic link between Cassiopeia and the creature named for her.

Back to said Jellyfish.

A long known part of living with Cassiopea is that you don’t want to share the water with them. (No. 2 on the list of reasons why you shouldn’t swim inside the moat around Fort Jefferson) This is because swimming with Cassiopea can result in stinging, itchy skin, and an itchy red rash. And effect known as “stinging water” This isn’t some echo of Posiedon’s revenge, this stinging itchy feeling comes from mucus globules full of stinging cells which Cassiopea are now known to produce. These globules are called cassiosomes. And you can read more about them in the link here: Cassiosomes. . ., which comes with all of the technical stuff. If you ever wanted to learn about Jellyfish snot, this is the article, with links to more!!!

I won’t even attempt to summarize it here beyond the general idea that upside down jellyfish can spit out snot filled with stinging cells. Thier goal is immobilizing/killing/hunting prey much smaller than a human, to supplement thier photosynthetic symbiosis. The result, for us, is that in an area full of cassiopea, we get itchy burny skin.

So, what was the point of this? Well, #1 was to shout to whoever classified the genus. The name fits. Number 2 it was to pat myself on the back, because the studies linking the “stinging water” around upside-down jellyfish to a specific cause were published in 2020, so I got to add a relatively new fact to the book. And number 3 was to take all of that wind out of my sails, because this is where I admit something which should always be obvious when you pick up one of my books.

I don’t know everything. I don’t have all the information. Even when I do, I cant fit everything into a single book. There are so many fun things to know about every national park, and one mystery per park is great to highlight different places, but it means that there will always be more to discover, more to learn, and more to share. Some of which I will do on this blog, some of which I will not do, so I encourage you, if you find anything interesting in a national park, pursue that interest, because you never know what you may learn.

For instance: I featured Cassiopea in the Dry Tortugas book. But I didn’t even scratch the surface. I might have mentioned the newest coolest discovery. (people have known about the link between stinging water and the presence of cassiopea for a long time, the discovery is how it works) But I missed a much more in depth story about Cassiopea and the Dry Tortugas.

Alfred Goldsborough Mayor was a Marine Biologist who kept a lab out at the Dry Tortugas. The Tortugas Lab appears in many scientific articles from the early 19th century. And one of his big topics of study was our snot slinging upside-down jellyfish Cassiopea. He was more interested in it’s neural functions, and published several papers on how the arms and bell transmitted signals back and forth, but the story of his relationship with the area that is now Dry Tortugas National Park is fascinating. And it is just one highlight amongst many that I was not able to feature. Bud Long, a long term park supervisor has some pretty crazy stories. The long standing project to study the sooty and nody terns on Bush Key is also fascinating. I could only begin to tell you about how much has been learned by people studying nurse sharks in the Dry Tortugas. There are turtle studies, coral studies, fish studies.

My rambling point is. Last week the Dry Tortugas made national News for the “discovery” of an “underwater” cemetery. (These quotes are not to indicate sarcasm) That was an example of a small piece of the history of which the park has much to offer. There is also a lot of nature too. And every park has a massive range of depth to explore. I learn more any time I try to write about them.

But sometimes I can smile when things line up better than expected.

I might not have been able to fit Alfred Goldsborough Mayor in Treasure off the Coast, (so I will probably write more about him in the future,) and I didn’t even know this fact until I was doing more Cassiopea research today, but do you know where he farmed a lot of the Cassiopea he used for his research at the Dry Tortugas? From the moat around Fort Jefferson. If you have read Treasure off the Coast you might know why I find that a satifying coincidence. (If you haven’t read it, how did you find my blog?)

There’s a lot to share about every park. More than I can fit in a a single book, and I don’t plan on doubling up any time soon. Even as I write book 3 I know I’m going to end up cutting things I’d really rather put in. But the good news is, I can share some of that here. The better news is, you can find it for yourself. (or ask the experts who know more about the park to begin with.)

And maybe, if you are so inclined, you can make some new discoveries in parks yourself. The recent discovery of a forgotten cemetery, the less-but still-recent study explaining the mucus-filled reason you shouldn’t swim in the moat, these are just two examples of things that can still be found and learned in parks these days. There is plenty more out there to discover. If you make a discovery in your park, which you want featured in one of my books, let me know!

Links

The wikipedia article about the Jellyfish again: The picture you should compare to the constellation is the first one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassiopea

The Scientific article about Cassiosomes

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7018847/

A fun article about Jellyfish sleep

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/841717

One of the articles about Cassiopea by Alfred Goldsborough Mayor

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1.5.270

(The pictures in this blog are only my fault! Sorry I don’t have any better ones of the actual jellyfish, but you can find those online.)