Alien Jellies

I haven't quite got into the blogging groove again, but I was sorting through some photos this morning when I came across this one:

This was taken at the Monterrey Bay Aquarium in California a couple of summers ago. You will notice that the title refers to them as "jellies". Now, this really bugs me! I know, it is my own blog and I can call them jellyfish if I want, can't I? Well, I know quite a few people that get really upset when I call them jellyfish. They will snoot and snort and inform me, as if I were some quivering mass of stupidness, that they are not fish. Really!?! Here was me thinking that they were. Just as I think that a butterfly is a fly made of butter and that a seahorse is an aquatic hoofed mammal of the Equus genus. I have several birding friends who get very upset when I call a gull a seagull - apparently that is not correct, they are gulls, not seagulls! Well, excuse me! Common names are notorious for being inaccurate and very variable. If I say daddy-long-legs to an English person, they think cranefly, but here in Canada, everyone thinks of those spiders with small globular bodies on long, threadlike legs (harvestmen for all you Englishers out there). So, if you want accuracy, use scientific names - that is what they are there for - otherwise, let me say jellyfish and seagull and get over it!