Each night, billions of marine creatures living in the twilight zone — between 600 and 3,280 ft beneath the ocean surface — make a vertical journey to the surface. Many small or young animals catch a lift on jellyfishes, which serve as elevators of sorts. A photo of the phenomenon was captured off the coast of Palm Beach, Florida, by Tom Shlesinger, a marine ecologist at Tel Aviv University.
The image, titled “Nightly Elevator,” won first place in this year’s Royal Society Publishing Photography Competition in the behavior category. It depicts an unidentified jellyfish species carrying a yellow fish as it ascends, giving a new meaning to “vertical transportation” (VT). The Royal Society writes that this “elevator” allows hitchhiking animals to rest and offers them protection from predators that will avoid getting too close to the jellyfish’s stinging cells.
Known as the diel vertical migration, the nightly passage is believed to be related to feeding behaviors, allowing smaller creatures to feed in the surface waters under the cover of darkness before descending back to the safety of the twilight zone.  Â
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