The researchers named the newly discovered species Tripedalia maipoensis after the Mai Po Nature Reserve.
Scientists at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) have discovered small, cube-shaped, 24-eyed box jellyfish in the Mai Po Nature Reserve. The research team led by Professor Qiu Jianwen collected jellyfish samples from a brackish shrimp pond in the Mai Po Nature Reserve, locally known as “Ji Wai”, during the summers of 2020 to 2022, and they found that the samples Is a new species.
The researchers named the newly discovered species Tripedalia maipoensis after the Mai Po Nature Reserve. It has 24 eyes and 12 trunks, due to which it keeps swimming. Its speed is faster than other jellyfish.
Professor Qiu said, “We have named the new species Tripedalia maipoensis to reflect its type locality – where the new species was first found. Although it is currently known only in Mai Po, we believe This species is also distributed in the waters surrounding the Pearl River Estuary. The bays are connected to the estuary through a tidal channel.”
Scientists discovered the world’s most dangerous jellyfish with 24 eyes.
Scientists at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) have discovered small, cube-shaped, 24-eyed box jellyfish in the Mai Po Nature Reserve. The research team led by Professor Qiu Jianwen collected jellyfish samples from a brackish shrimp pond in the Mai Po Nature Reserve, locally known as “Ji Wai”, during the summers of 2020 to 2022, and they found that the samples Is a new species.
The researchers named the newly discovered species Tripedalia maipoensis after the Mai Po Nature Reserve. It has 24 eyes and 12 trunks, due to which it keeps swimming. Its speed is faster than other jellyfish.
Professor Qiu said, “We have named the new species Tripedalia maipoensis to reflect its type locality – where the new species was first found. Although it is currently known only in Mai Po, we believe This species is also distributed in the waters surrounding the Pearl River Estuary. The bays are connected to the estuary through a tidal channel.”
According to a release by the university , the box jellyfish, named for its cube-shaped body (or as it is scientifically known as Cubozoa) belongs to the phylum Cnidaria. Even though the class Cubozoa is one of the smaller groups of cnidarians, it includes some highly venomous marine animals that are widely known in tropical waters.
The recently discovered Tripedalia mypoensis belongs to the Tripedalidae family. It is the fourth-described species of Tripedalidae and the third-described species of the genus Tripedalia worldwide. It has a transparent and colorless body with an average length of 1.5 cm.
It has three tentacles up to 10 cm high at each of its four corners. The pedalia, a flat pedal-shaped structure at the base of each tentacle that looks like a boat paddle, allow the box jellyfish to exert strong thrust when contracting its body. That’s why they can swim faster than other types of jellyfish.
