Hundreds of velella, a tiny, jellyfish-like creatures, washed ashore on a seashore in Playa del Rey, California.
Researchers say they’ve unearthed a brand new species of jellyfish – one with two dozen eyes.
The Hong Kong Baptist College-led crew mentioned Tripedalia maipoensis is the primary discovery of a brand new field jellyfish species from the waters of China. The invention additionally provides a fourth species to the Tripedaliidae household.
The detection of the jellyfish was not too long ago revealed in a paper describing the brand new species within the worldwide educational journal Zoological Research.
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Researchers mentioned they collected the jellyfish samples, which contained the brand new species from a brackish shrimp pond, regionally referred to as “gei wai,” within the Mai Po Nature Reserve in the course of the summers of 2020 to 2022.
“We named the brand new species Tripedalia maipoensis to mirror its sort locality – the place the brand new species was first discovered,” mentioned Qiu Jianwen, a professor of the Division of Biology at HKBU.
Whereas the species is at the moment identified solely in Mai Po, Qiu believes that this species can also be distributed within the adjoining waters of the Pearl River Estuary.
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The analysis crew was led by Qiu Jianwen, a professor of the Division of Biology at HKBU.
(Hong Kong Baptist College)
Based on scientists, Tripedalia maipoensis is a intently associated species broadly reported within the tropics and subtropics, together with Jamaica, Florida, Singapore, Australia and India.
Along with its clear and colorless physique, Tripedalia maipoensis has 24 eyes like different field jellyfish — equally divided into 4 teams.
Researchers consider two eyes in every group have lenses that allow image-forming, whereas the opposite 4 can solely sense mild.
The species has a mean size of 1.5 cm. That doesn’t embrace its three tentacles, as much as 10 cm lengthy at every of its 4 corners.
It additionally has a pedalia, a flat pedal-shaped construction on the base of every tentacle that appears like a ship paddle. Researchers say this enables field jellyfish to supply sturdy thrusts permitting them to swim quicker than different jellyfish.
“Field jellyfish are a small group of cnidarians with solely 49 species reported worldwide,” Qiu mentioned. “They’re poorly identified in Chinese language marine waters.”
The invention of the brand new jellyfish species in Mai Po, Qiu provides, highlights the wealthy range of marine life in Hong Kong and even the entire of China.
