Inside Europe’s greatest jellyfish farm

These eerily gorgeous pictures display animals born at Europe’s greatest jelly-fish breeding facility: Jellyfish Farm, in Künzell, Germany – loads of kilometres from any ocean.

Photographers Heidi and Hans-Jürgen Koch used macro lenses and studio flashes to seize the photographs, however they had been maximum excited by the location of the jellyfish, which sink to the ground of a typical aquarium and thus wouldn’t be photographable. The animals wanted a “jellyfish kreisel“, or gyroscope, to create water motion, with out which they are able to’t swim or feed.

Jellyfish go with the flow “between being an environmental threat and a source of sustainable innovation”, say the Kochs as a part of their undertaking. The choice of blooms is increasing as oceans warmth up and air pollution and overfishing building up, with dire penalties for ecosystems and economies.

But jellyfish additionally provide nice alternatives: as animal feed, fertilisers or human superfoods, due to the anti inflammatory and immunologically vital biochemicals they comprise. Their mucus too can create a biofilter to prevent plastics from achieving the ocean.

Pacific compass jellyfish (Chrysaora fuscescens) are proven in the principle image. They can be shipped to zoos, aquariums and analysis establishments. Below this, a gyroscope supplies an ocean-like vortex for moon jellyfish (Aurelia aurita). Pictured above, a pipette accommodates mangrove jellyfish (Cassiopea xamachana).

As adults, they’re going to continue to exist the seafloor, their tentacles pointing to daylight, serving to single-celled algae there behavior photosynthesis. The symbol above presentations jellyfish specimens being checked earlier than dispatch.