A biologist captured mesmerising video of a jellyfish gliding between reflections of Venetian palaces on Easter Sunday.
Andrea Mangoni, who works in Venice, told Reuters that recent low tide and low traffic amid Italy's coronavirus restrictions had increased water transparency and made it possible to observe marine life directly in the centre of the city, an unexpected positive side effect of the Covid-19 pandemic.
"I was able to film a jellyfish that was swimming close to the San Marco square, only few inches below the water surface," he said.
Attilio Rinaldi, an adjunct professor from the Department of Biological, Geological, and Environmental Sciences at Italy's University of Bologna, told Reuters the species seen in the video, the rhisostoma pulmo, is very common in the upper Adriatic and could enter the Venetian canals through tidal flows that connect the upper Adriatic to the lagoon.
Maciej Manko from the Department of Marine Plankton Research Institute of the Oceanography University of Gdansk, Poland, explained that previous research has shown this type of jellyfish can travel through networks of natural channels easily, so it would be possible for the species to get into the Venetian canals.
Mr Mangoni's underwater video shows a range of other aquatic life in the city's unusually still canals.
