Species Linuche unguiculata (Swartz, 1788)

Museums

Regional Maps

• Medusa unguiculata Swartz, O. 1788. Medusa unguiculata och Actinea pusilla. Neue Abhandl. Schwed. Acad. Deutsch Uebers 9: 188–202 [199].

Generic Combinations

• Linuche unguiculata (Swartz, 1788).

Distribution

States

Queensland

Extra Distribution Information

Reported in Queensland waters by Kramp (1965); however, these specimens are more accurately referable to L. aquila based on their structural morphology (Gershwin re-examination of specimens; unpublished notes 1999). Seasonally common throughout the tropical Atlantic.

Ecological Descriptors

Carnivorous, epipelagic, marine, planktonic.

Extra Ecological Information

Dependant on zooxanthellae for food supply.

Diagnosis

Linuche with three rows of subumbrellar protuberances: one bilobed horizontally between the gonads near the mouth, another oblong vertically between the gonads near the bottom, and the other round around the bottom of the gonads.

Diagnosis References

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] [558]

Notes

All stages of the life cycle have been demonstrated to give the dermatological illness known as 'seabather's eruption', common in the Caribbean (Segura Puertas et al. 2001)

General References

Kramp, P.L. 1965. The hydromedusae of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Dana Reports 63: 1–161 (distribution)

Segura-Puertas, L., Ramos, M.E., Aramburo, C., Heimer De La Cotera, E.P. & Burnett, J.W.. One Linuche mystery solved: all 3 stages of the coronate scyphomedusa Linuche unguiculata cause seabather's eruption. Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology 44: 624-628

History of changes