Species Chrysaora quinquecirrha (Desor, 1848)

Museums

Regional Maps

• Pelagia quinquecirrha Desor, E. 1848. Notes to the President in the Chair. Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History 3: 76 [76].
• Dactylometra quinquecirrha Agassiz, L. 1862. Contributions to the Natural History of the United States of America. Second monograph. In five parts — Pt. I Acalephs in general. Pt. II Ctenophore. Pt. III. Discophorae. Pt. IV. Hydroidae. Pt. V. Homologies of the Radiata. Boston, London : Little Brown, Trubner Vol. IV i-viii, 380 pp. + (1-10), pls 20-35. [166] [Reclassification of Pelagia quinquecirrha Desor (1848); later moved to the genus Chrysaora by Kramp (1955a: 297; 1961b: 327); most authors have historically kept the species in the genus Dactylometra; sometimes still referred to under the genus Dactylometra in modern usage].

Taxonomic Decision for Synonymy

• Kramp, P.L. 1961. Synopsis of the medusae of the world. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 40: 1-469 [327]

Generic Combinations

• Dactylometra quinquecirrha (Agassiz, 1862).
• Chrysaora quinquecirrha (Kramp, 1955).

Distribution

Recorded from "Australia".

Extra Distribution Information

United States of America (District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia)

Ecological Descriptors

Carnivorous, epipelagic, estuary, marine, neritic, planktonic.

Diagnosis

Up to 250 mm wide; marginal lappets semicircular or tongue-shaped; the lappet-clefts of the primary and secondary tentacles deep, the tertiary mere shallow notches; stomach pouches all of equal width, septa straight until some distance from margin, where each of them makes an S-like bend before converging towards the rhopalar radius; in each octant three large tentacles and usually two (sometimes four) smaller ones issuing from subumbrella side of the rhopalar lappets; colour very variable, usually rather pale, yellowish or pink, sometimes in radiating stripes.

ID Keys

A field key to eight species of Chrysaora from the Americas and Europe was provided by Gershwin & Collins (2002).

Diagnosis References

Kramp, P.L. 1961. Synopsis of the medusae of the world. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 40: 1-469 [328]

Notes

Reported in Australia by: Southcott, 1963; Edmonds, 1975. There is no evidence that assignment of Australian specimens to this species is accurate; all Australian reports of this species are probably erroneous.

Chrysaora quinquecirrha is the common bothersome sea nettle from Chesapeake Bay in the United States; it is sometimes also called Dactylometra quinquecirrha.

The species has had a complicated nomenclatural history: Originally described as Pelagia quinquecirrha Desor (1848); later moved to the genus Chrysaora by Kramp (1955a: 297; 1961b: 327); most authors have historically kept the species in the genus Dactylometra, even in modern usage. Dactylometra is charcterised by having 40 tentacles at maturity, whereas Chrysaora is characterised by having 24; since jellyfish are born without tentacles, and add them as they age, it is not difficult to imagine that a Dactylometra might go through a "Chrysaora stage" of having 24 tentacles. However, this does not make them identical. According to Papenfuss (1936), the nematocysts differed between the red 40-tentacled form and the white 24-tentacled form; however, Littleford (1938) studied both the red and white forms and concluded that they were "the extremes of a highly variable species and not separate species" (p42).

General References

Gershwin, L. & A. Collins 2002. A preliminary phylogeny of Pelagiidae (Cnidaria, Scyphozoa), with new observations of Chrysaora colorata comb. nov. Journal of Natural History 36(2): 127-148

Littleford, R.A. 1938. A study of the life history of Dactylometra quinquecirrha, L. Agassiz, and the taxonomic validity of this species. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Maryland. 1-47, pl. I-XIX

Papenfuss, E.J. 1936. The utility of nematocysts in the classification of certain Scyphomedusae. Lund Universitets Arsskrift 2 31(11): 1-26 [14]

History of changes