One of the world’s deadliest venomous animals is so hard to see as it slinks through the water that it may as well be wearing an invisibility cloak: the Australian box jellyfish (Chironex fleckeri). This is the best known and deadliest of all box jellyfish but there are more than 50 species – and a new one has just been discovered.
Researchers from Tohoku University and the National University of Singapore had the unenviable job of collecting several box jellyfish that had washed up on Sentosa Island, off the coast of Singapore.
If gathering these venomous specimens wasn’t frightening enough, Sentosa used to be called Pulau Blakang Mati, which roughly translates to 'Island of Death Behind'.
When examining the specimens in the lab, the team discovered an entirely new species – the fourth in the Chironex genus – and named it Chironex blakangmati after the historic name of the island.
The new species could easily be mistaken for other types of box jelly. At first, the scientists even mistook it for Chironex yamaguchii, a box jelly known as habu-kurage or the viper jelly.
The two species looked so similar that, at first, they seemed indistinguishable. In fact, people had always lumped them together. But a detailed examination revealed that C. blakangmati has its own unique features.
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Cheryl Ames, a jellyfish expert at Tohoku University and the Advanced Institute for Marine Ecosystem Change (WPI-AIMEC) had a feeling of deja-vu, saying in a statement: “I actually went back to dust off an old sample of C. yamaguchii I still had in storage in Okinawa to help with the comparisons!”
Genetic analysis confirmed that C. blakangmati is a completely distinct species. The findings were published in Raffles Bulletin of Zoology.
This new jelly is missing something that is present in the other three known Chironex species: they didn’t have canals on their curiously named perradial lappets.
Perradial lappets are structures found at the bottom of the jellyfish’s box-shaped bell. They provide support to the velarium – the muscular tissue that helps box jellyfish actively swim through the water. The other three known species of Chironex have pointed canals coming out from the ends of its perradial lappets but the new species does not.
Knowing this enables scientists to identify the species without having to run genetic tests.
The researchers made another surprising discovery. While taking samples, they also found a jellyfish called C. indrasaksajiae, which is usually found in Thailand and has never been recorded in Singapore before.
“We were surprised to find C. indrasaksajiae so far away from Thailand,” says Ames, “Recording range expansions like these is really important, as we currently know so little about the biodiversity and spatial distribution of box jellyfish.”
Learning more about these potentially dangerous jellyfish – which don’t drift with the current like other jellies but can actively swim towards intended prey – is an important part of protecting swimmers from getting stung.
Read more about the study, published in Raffles Bulletin of Zoology.
Top image credit: Paola Giannoni/Getty Images
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