The photograph showed a small, yellow oceanic fish in the belly of a transparent jellyfish with purple tentacles. And because of its unique depiction of marine life, the picture went viral after publications like Science Alert and National Geographic showed the “curious scene.” The photographs made ripples on social media again in 2021 when The Arts, a lifestyle and culture Facebook page, reshared a 2016 article published by the culture website My Modern Met to its Facebook page. At the time of this writing, the post had garnered more than 80,000 likes.
Snopes contacted the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, which confirmed that the photo was authentic. According to Academy Curator of Ichthyology Luiz Rocha, the fish is a juvenile trevally of the scientific family Carangidae, but it is hard to identify the specific species because “juveniles of that group look very similar.”