New Jellyfish Discovered; Given Sexy Name
While there are hundreds of known jellyfish species in the world, the scientific community is used to discovering new species ever so often. This is mainly because there are jellyfish in almost all marine waters of the world and as new waters are chartered and investigated, invariably, new species of jellyfish are discovered. However, one recent discovery of a new jellyfish species has taken even the scientists by surprise.
Tasmanian scientists have discovered a new species of jellyfish in Hobart's River Derwent and have decided to give it an extremely sexy name.
The new species has been named Csiromedusa medeopolis, meaning "jellyfish from CSIRO" and "city of gonads".
There are good reasons for the names selected by scientists for the jellyfish. Firstly, discovered the jellyfish while surveying the waters outside the CSIRO in Hobart, which explains the ‘jellyfish from CSIRO’ bit of the name. What about ‘city of gonads?’ Well, the reason for this name is that the jellyfish looks like a flying saucer with a cluster of gonads, or sex organs, on top.
The jellyfish is only a few millimeters wide, but scientists consider it to be an astounding discovery. This is mainly because this jellyfish seems to be one of its kind and extremely difficult to classify. This means that a brand new family had to be created for this species along with its own genus. This is very exciting and scientists hope that they will soon be able to add other species to this family.
"It's absolutely different from every other jellyfish that's ever been known," Dr Gershwin said.
"So we not only put it into its own new species and its own new genus, but it's actually a brand new family."
Dr Gershwin says the find is also tremendously exciting.
"Quite possibly and quite humbly the greatest discovery of my career, ever. I mean I'll be lucky if I ever get a discovery even half as incredible again," she said.
"You know any mum with a new bub is always excited, but when you have a whole family of new bubs I think it's triply exciting."
After tests, it has been found that the jellyfish does not cause any harm to humans. Given the jellyfish sting scare people are experiencing along coastlines around the world, this news comes as a relief to many. Dr Gershwin confirmed that the jellyfish is harmless to humans.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/05/2891299.htm
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