New Jellyfish Discovered
Posted by: Loren Coleman on January 12th, 2007
Above is a box jellyfish, but not the new one.
A new jellyfish, which is unique because it can survive the dry season, has been discovered off Australia. The bart jellyfish is found only at the Gove Peninsular "in the Top End." (The Top End is the second northernmost point on the continent of Australia, behind the Cape York Peninsula. It covers a rather vaguely-defined area of perhaps 400,000 square kilometres bounded by sea on three sides, the Indian Ocean on the west, the Arafura Sea to the north, and the Gulf of Carpentaria to the east, and by the almost waterless semi-arid interior of Australia to the south.)
Bart Currie.
The jellyfish’s name is in recognition of Dr. Bart Currie from the Menzies Research Institute "for his almost 20 years of researching the animal" (i.e. jellyfish, in general) in the Northern Territory.
Another example of a box jellyfish but not the bart variety.
Dr. Currie noted that "Jellyfish are animals which are … incredibly interesting. They have eyes, well at least these box jellyfish do. They can swim in a very purposeful direction, and they just really have so much to teach us."
Like many "new" species announced as discoveries of late, this jellyfish has had articles written on it by Bart Currie as far back, perhaps, as 2002. But it appears it was just announced on January 12th, in Australia, to have been named in Bart Currie’s honor.
Has this been a record year for the discovery of new species? I haven’t been following this angle long enough to know, I was mostly interested in the (for lack of a better word) “main” cryptids for the past few years.
The more new species I see discovered, the more credence it seems to give my views on certain other cryptids yet undiscovered. It just seems I’m seeing something newly discovered every time I turn around, which is fantastic! So is it just me? Or has the past year yielded some amazing amounts of discoveries, news items, etc? (Granted with that come a whole boatload of fake stuff as well, but I’m impressed nonetheless!)
“Has this been a record year for the discovery of new species?”
Well, 2007 is less than two weeks old, so it’s hard to tell.
The Year 2006 seemed like it got a lot of media notice around discoveries that had been actually made, sometimes, in previous years.
Also, our awareness of new discoveries is only as good as the forms of communication to share that information. For example, 2006 was the first full year that Cryptomundo existed. We are working hard to bring all this news together in one place for you on a daily basis.
I too must agree that 2006 seemed like an extraordinary year of discoveries. But then, I made it a priority to get every new discovery to readers here in a way it had never been done before.
Yes you certainly did at that. I think this is the single best resource out there for getting to the meat of any particular CZ item or issue. I trust the opinions and knowledge here more than any other place.
So thanks from a small fry.
Hopefully it’s not as deadly as the tiny Irukandji or the larger potentially lethal Box Jellyfish (Chironex Fleckeri) as I saw on the Discovery Channel last night. Still, new species discoveries are always nice to hear about. Always looking forward to hear about new species finds and again this the best place.
Thanks Loren.