Species Mastigietta palmipes (Haeckel, 1880)

Museums

Regional Maps

• Crambessa palmipes Haeckel, E. 1880. System der Acraspeden. Zweite Halfte des System der Medusen. Jena : G. Fischer. [620].

  Type data:

   Holotype PMJ unnumbered, coast of northern Australia
  Comment: Examined by Stiasny (1922c: 68).

Generic Combinations

• Mastigietta palmipes (Haeckel, 1880).

Distribution

States

Northern Territory

Extra Distribution Information

Also from Mauritius, India, Philippines

Ecological Descriptors

Marine, neritic, pelagic, planktonic.

Diagnosis

Mastigietta with numerous warts of nematocysts on the exumbrella, but lappet region smooth; 5–8 velar lappets in each octant; mouth-arms thick, shorter than disk radius, without appendages; arm-disk with filaments; 12–14 canal roots in each octant; rhopaliar canasl with anastomoses throughout their length.

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 [361]

Notes

Originally described from the coast of northern Australia. The species was regarded as valid by von Lendenfeld (1884d: 299, as Crambessa), and Mayer (1910: 667 as Catostylus); Stiasny (1921b: 100) transferred it to Mastigietta, where it has remained unchallenged.

Outside Australia, the species was reported in the Malay Archipelago by Schultze (1898), the Philippines by Mayer (1910), Mauritius by Stiasny (1931a) and Krusadai Islands by Menon (1936).

Stiasny (1922c) examined Haeckel's original specimen, as well as that of Schultze, and determined that Schultze's specimen was an abnormal Thysanostoma or Himantostoma.

Mastigietta palmipes was mentioned as a member of the Northern Territory fauna by Williamson et al. (1996).

General 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 [361]

Mayer, A.G. 1910. Medusae of the World. Vol. 1 and 2, The Hydromedusae. Vol. 3, The Scyphomedusae. Washington, D.C. : Carnegie Institution 735 pp., 76 pls. [reprinted by A. Asher & Co., 1977]

Schultze, L.S. 1898. Rhizostomen von Ambon. Denkschriften der Medizinisch-Naturwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft zu Jena 8: 443–466, 2 pls

Williamson, J., Fenner, P., Burnett, J. & Rifkin, J. (eds) 1996. Venomous and Poisonous Marine Animals: a medical and biological handbook. Sydney, Australia : NSW University Press 800 pp.

History of changes