Episode 343: Mystery Jellyfish

This week we finish out Invertebrate August with some mysterious jellyfish, including a suggestion by Siya! Further reading: Mystery giant jellyfish washes up in Australia New jellyfish named after curious Australian schoolboy Mysterious jellyfish found off the coast of Papua New Guinea intrigues researchers Newly discovered jellyfish is a 24-eyed weirdo related to the world’s most venomous marine creature Rare jellyfish with three tentacles spotted in Pacific Ocean The Immortal Jellyfish A mystery jellyfish washed up on an Australian beach [photo by Josie Lim]: The tiny box jellyfish found in a pond in Hong Kong: The very rare Chirodectes: The mystery jelly that may be Chirodectes or a close relation: A mystery deep-sea jelly with only three tentacles: Bathykorus, a possible relation of the three-tentacled mystery jelly: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. It’s hard to believe Invertebrate August is already ending, so let’s finish the month out with some mystery jellyfish, including a recent suggestion from Siya! When you visit the beach, it’s pretty common to find jellyfish washed ashore. They’re usually pretty small and obviously you don’t want to touch them, because many jellies can sting and the stings can activate even if the jelly is dead. Well, in February 2014, a family visiting the beach in Tasmania found a jelly washed ashore that was a little bit larger than normal. Okay, a lot larger than normal. The jellyfish they found measured almost five feet across, or 1.5 meters. It had flattened out under its own weight but it was still impressive. The family was so surprised at how big it was that they sent pictures to the state’s wildlife organization, who sent scientists to look at it. The scientists had heard reports of a big pink and white jellyfish for years, and now they had one to examine. Dr. Lisa-ann Gershwin thought it might even be a new species of lion’s mane jelly. New species of jellyfish are discovered all the time. Dr. Gershwin has described over 200 new species herself. One example is a jellyfish discovered by a nine-year-old. In 2013, a nine-year-old boy in Queensland, Australia was fishing in a canal with his dad and a friend, when he noticed a jellyfish and scooped it up with a net. Its bell was only about an inch long, or 2.5 cm, and the boy thought it was really cute and interesting. He wanted to know what kind of jellyfish it was, so after some pestering on his part, his dad helped him send it to the Queensland Museum for identification. Dr. Gershwin was the jellyfish expert at the museum at the time, and she was as surprised as the boy’s dad to discover that the jellyfish was new to science! The boy’s name was Saxon Thomas, and to thank him for being so persistent about getting his jellyfish looked at by a scientist, the jellyfish was named Chiropsella saxoni. It’s a type of box jellyfish, which can be deadly, but this one is so small that it’s probably not that dangerous to humans.