Species Carukia barnesi Southcott, 1967

Museums

Regional Maps

• Carukia barnesi Southcott, R.V. 1967. Revision of some Carybdeidae (Scyphozoa: Cubomedusae), including a description of the jellyfish responsible for the "Irukandji syndrome". Australian Journal of Zoology 15: 651–671 [653].

  Type data:

   Holotype SAMA H345♀ (10 Dec 1961), Palm Beach, QLD.
  Paratype(s) SAMA H346♂ (18 Nov 1964), Ellis Beach, QLD.

Distribution

States

Queensland

IBRA and IMCRA regions

IMCRA

Northeast Shelf Province (40), Northeast Shelf Transition (41)

Ecological Descriptors

Carnivorous, marine, pelagic, planktonic.

Diagnosis

IDENTIFICATION. Originally distinguished primarily based on the absence of phacellae, Carukia barnesi is quite distinctive in a number of features. The body is small (ca. 1 cm bell height) and quite mammillated, with an interesting reticulated pattern partitioning off each wart on the apex. The tentacles have unmistakable “handkerchief-like” or “tailed” rings, with fairly long regions of unadorned tentacle shaft in between. The rhopalial niche ostia are of the frown form, with the “rhopalial horns” very long at a strong upward angle, and the pedalial canals are simple, lacking any sort of diverticula at the bend. The velarium is quite distinctive, with 2 canals per octant, all alike in the form of simple triangles, with a single nematocyst wart on the one nearest the perradius, and the perradial lappets are present but lacking nematocyst warts. The statoliths are sub-circular in outline, without a basal concavity and lacking an apical “tooth” projection. The tentacular nematocysts are of a single type only, i.e., egg-shaped euryteles or tumiteles, 25-26 x 15-18 (Southcott, 1967).

Diagnosis References

Gershwin, L. 2005. Taxonomy and phylogeny of Australian Cubozoa. Unpublished PhD thesis. School of Marine Biology and Aquaculture, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD. 221 pp. 49 pls [116]

History of changes