Jellyfish Lake

Jellyfish Lake is a well-known dive site in the Pacific island of Palau. It is on Eil Malk, one of the Rock Islands, a series of small, rocky, uninhabited archipelagos off the coast of Koror. Jellyfish Lake, known to Palau’s natives as Ongeim’l Tketau, is one of over 70 similar saltwater lakes in the islands and contains over ten million jellyfish that have descended and evolved from a common ancestor, the spotted jellyfish. Jellyfish Lake is completely isolated, but in the distant past, it had an outlet to the ocean.

The outlet was closed off and the high jellyfish population was isolated and started to feed on quickly-reproducing algae. Contrary to popular belief, the jellyfish of Jellyfish Lake do have small stinging cells, or nematocysts. However, because the stinging cells are so tiny, their sting is not detectable on most human tissue, so tourists can enjoy swimming with them much closer than would be possible anywhere else.

At night, the jellyfish descend into a layer of hydrogen sulfide which is found below 15-20m of depth. SCUBA diving in the lake is prohibited to avoid disturbing the jellyfish and also to reduce the risk of hydrogen sulfide poisoning.

In two episodes of Survivor (Survivor: Palau and Survivor: Fans vs. Favorites), as a reward for winning a reward challenge, winners got to swim in Jellyfish Lake.