Jellywatch provides social media platform for marine life studies

A new website has emerged as a resource for scientists and marine life lovers alike to document the appearance of jellyfish all over the world.

Jellywatch allows users to post photos, publish notes and connect with others who are concerned with marine biology. The website focuses on jellyfish but also allows visitors to document other unusual events in the ocean, like red tides or mass beach strandings of different sea creatures.

Steve Haddock, the Monterey Bay Aquarium researcher behind the project, says that jellyfish are the primary concern of Jellywatch because historical data about so-called jelly blooms, when jellyfish form large swarms, is hard to come by.

"The idea is that this is a place for two-way communication similar to the social networking sites like Facebook, but focused on citizen science," says Haddock. "The idea is that everyday people can get involved in a real ocean research project. People have been talking about jelly blooms increasing around the world, but we don't really have a lot of data on this. So it's hard to know how localized these events are. That's why we created this website."

Currently, there are other jellyfish documentation websites in existence. But many of them, such as Jellyfish Watch, have not been updated recently.