AAH!
That's the sound I'd make if I turned a corner one day and found myself ensconced in the gooey translucent flesh of a jellyfish. I bet you would too. And, to our human eyes, the fish in the picture below appears to be doing something similar. Its expression is the fishy facial equivalent of a long, silent scream.
But it turns out that may not be the full story.
Tim Samuel, an Australian underwater photographer, posted the image to Reddit and Instagram. In a comment on his Reddit post (which has been removed by a moderator, but you can still access here) he provides some context:
This was taken while swimming around the beaches in Byron Bay, Australia. The fish was trapped in there, but controlled the Jellyfish's movement, the fish would have a difficult time swimming in a straight line, the Jellyfish would knock him off course though, and every now and then it would get stuck swimming in circles.
Unsurprisingly, the image, which could almost be a clever piece of stunt marketing for the upcoming "Finding Nemo" sequel, went viral. Commenters argued about whether the jellyfish was eating the fish and whether the photographer should have freed the baffled little thing. (He didn't.)
Thankfully a reporter for the site Australian Geographic caught up with an expert, who lent some context to the bizarre scene:
Associate Professor Ian Tibbetts, a fish biologist at the Centre for Marine Science at the University of Queensland, says that while it's difficult to tell from photos alone, the fish looks like it could be a juvenile trevally, which are known to seek shelter among the stingers of certain jellyfish. In this case, the situation may have taken a surprise turn for the small fish, which ended up inside the jellyfish.
"It's difficult to tell whether disaster has just struck, or whether the fish is happy to be in there," says Ian, who adds that the jellyfish looks like a type of stinging jellyfish called a cubomedusan.
"Although by the photographer's description of the fish swimming, my guess is that it is probably quite happy to be protected in there," Ian added.
So while the exact details of this situation remain a bit of a mystery, we can rest assured that the fish is probably doing fine.
