Family TAMOYIDAE Haeckel, 1880

Museums

Regional Maps

• Gershwin, L. & Alderslade, P. 2005. A new genus and species of box jellyfish (Cubozoa: Carybdeida) from tropical Australian waters. The Beagle, Records of the Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory 21: 27–36 [29]

Introduction

Haeckel (1880, 1881) used his subfamily Tamoyidae to include the genera Carybdea and Tamoya, compared to his subfamily Procharagmidae, which included his genera Procharagma and Procharybdis. He separated Carybdea from Tamoya based on the latter having a large stomach, wide mesenteries, and peculiar gastric filaments. Haeckel (1881: 92) confused the orientation of the radii in the Cubozoa, stating that the gastric filaments of Carybdea “are distributed horizontally in the four perradial corners of the bottom of the stomach…,” whereas in Tamoya “they extend as four vertical bands in the interradial lateral lines of the large depending gastral sac.” In fact, by definition, the corners are interradial and the flat sides are perradial. Furthermore, he was mistaken in thinking that the filaments were offset from the typical corner location; as explained by Bigelow (1938), the phacellae of Tamoya are located between the perradial mesenteries. However, they are quite peculiar in being oriented vertically rather than horizontally.

The family Tamoyidae was used by Gershwin & Alderslade (2005) to include those genera with vertical or absent phacellae and a frown-shaped rhopaliar niche (e.g. Carukia, Gerongia, and Tamoya), and to exclude those genera with horizontal, brush-shaped, or crescentic phacellae and heart-shaped, odd-shaped, or T-shaped rhopaliar niches (e.g. Alata, Carybdea, Manokia, and Tripedalia).

Diagnosis

Carybdeida with rhopalial niches bordered by a single upper and single lower covering scale, giving the appearance of a human frown or dumb-bell shape; with phacellae comprised of vertically arranged clusters of cirri, or lacking phacellae; with or without an upward-pointing “thorn” at the bend of the pedalial canals. Typically with well developed mesenteries, but they may be reduced. With simple or complex velarial canals.

ID Keys

A comparative table of characters for the genera in the Tamoyidae may be found in Gershwin & Alderslade (2005: 29).

General References

Bigelow, H.B. 1938. Plankton of the Bermuda Oceanographic Expeditions. VIII. Medusae taken during the years 1929 and 1930. Zoologica (New York) 23(part 2)(5-9): 99–189, text-figs 1–23

Gershwin, L. & Alderslade, P. 2005. A new genus and species of box jellyfish (Cubozoa: Carybdeida) from tropical Australian waters. The Beagle, Records of the Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory 21: 27–36

Haeckel, E. 1880. System der Acraspeden. Zweite Halfte des System der Medusen. Jena : G. Fischer.

Haeckel, E.H. 1881. Report on the deep sea medusae dredged by the H.M.S. Challenger during the years 1873-1876. Report on the Scientific Results of the Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger 1873–1876, Zoology 4: 1-154

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