Note:Full text accompanies each panel. Only a portion of this, the introduction, is shown below.

At a recent get-together of world experts, it was asked what are the most significant areas of research, realisation and significance in the oceans. The “jelly community”, consisting of jellyfish, comb jellies, salps and siphonophores (relatives of the Portuguese Man-O-War) was top of the list. Billions upon billions of tons of jellies drift around the oceans and have done so more or less unchanged for at least 600,000,000 years. The jellyfish are not only important they are also large and beautiful. Vast swarms, at times measuring hundreds of miles, can occur. One such swarm of many billion individuals drifted lazily past Lizard Island Research Station on the Great Barrier Reef, for ten weeks recently without cease!