Jellyfish Lake

Jellyfish Lake (Palauan: Ongeim'l Tketau, "Fifth Lake") is a marine lake located on Eil Malk island in Palau. Eil Malk is part of the Rock Islands, a group of small, rocky, mostly uninhabited islands in Palau's Southern Lagoon, between Koror and Peleliu. There are about 70 other marine lakes located throughout the Rock Islands. Jellyfish Lake is one of Palau's most famous dive (snorkeling only) sites. It is notable for the millions of golden jellyfish which migrate horizontally across the lake daily.

Jellyfish Lake is connected to the ocean through fissures and tunnels in the limestone of ancient Miocene reef. However the lake is sufficiently isolated and the conditions are different enough that the diversity of species in the lake is greatly reduced from the nearby lagoon. The golden jellyfish, Mastigias cf. papua etpisoni, and possibly other species in the lake have evolved to be substantially different from their close relatives living in the nearby lagoons.

Read more about Jellyfish Lake:  Lake Stratification, Age of The Lake, Jellyfish Species, Snorkeling in Jellyfish Lake

Famous quotes containing the words jellyfish and/or lake:

    A jellyfish and a saurian,
    And caves where the cave men dwell;
    Then a sense of law and beauty,
    And a face turned from the clod—
    Some call it Evolution,
    And others call it God.
    William Herbet Carruth (1859–1929)

    They who know of no purer sources of truth, who have traced up its stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the Bible and the Constitution, and drink at it there with reverence and humility; but they who behold where it comes trickling into this lake or that pool, gird up their loins once more, and continue their pilgrimage toward its fountain-head.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)