http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/02/09/MNGQQ4RVI81.DTL
Biologists discover new kind of jellyfish
Bumpy is a jellyfish, and a curious one indeed.
Marine biologists steering their small unmanned submarine through the depths of the Monterey Canyon in Monterey Bay have discovered the blue-white creature with bumps of stinging cells all over its bell and its four trailing arms, and a healthy appetite, it seems, for other jellies.
It turns out to be a wholly new species. The scientists are still not sure how far or deep it ranges, because in 13 years of diving they have observed the creature only seven times -- five in the canyon itself and twice in the Sea of Cortez, 3,000 miles away.
But they have managed to collect enough of the creatures to examine every aspect of their anatomy and determine that they are, in fact, not only a new species, but also a new genus -- a higher classification that could include many other as-yet undiscovered species in the same group.
Kevin Raskoff and George Matsumoto, scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute at Moss Landing, have officially named their new jelly Stellamedusa ventana -- "Stella" because the translucent blue-white color of its four-inch bell and its four trailing arms reminded them of a slow- moving comet when they first saw it, and "Ventana," which is the name of the remotely operated underwater vehicle they used to track it. Bumpy is what they called it before scientific rigor demanded a more formal name for it.
What puzzles Matsumoto, he said in an interview, is the tremendous distance between the locales where they have seen it, and the fact that it seems to live at depths ranging widely from 500 to 1,800 feet, and in water temperatures varying from 70 degrees in the Sea of Cortez to 48 degrees in the waters of Monterey.
Matsumoto and Raskoff have published their findings in the Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom. -- David Perlman
Biologists discover new kind of jellyfish
Bumpy is a jellyfish, and a curious one indeed.
Marine biologists steering their small unmanned submarine through the depths of the Monterey Canyon in Monterey Bay have discovered the blue-white creature with bumps of stinging cells all over its bell and its four trailing arms, and a healthy appetite, it seems, for other jellies.
It turns out to be a wholly new species. The scientists are still not sure how far or deep it ranges, because in 13 years of diving they have observed the creature only seven times -- five in the canyon itself and twice in the Sea of Cortez, 3,000 miles away.
But they have managed to collect enough of the creatures to examine every aspect of their anatomy and determine that they are, in fact, not only a new species, but also a new genus -- a higher classification that could include many other as-yet undiscovered species in the same group.
Kevin Raskoff and George Matsumoto, scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute at Moss Landing, have officially named their new jelly Stellamedusa ventana -- "Stella" because the translucent blue-white color of its four-inch bell and its four trailing arms reminded them of a slow- moving comet when they first saw it, and "Ventana," which is the name of the remotely operated underwater vehicle they used to track it. Bumpy is what they called it before scientific rigor demanded a more formal name for it.
What puzzles Matsumoto, he said in an interview, is the tremendous distance between the locales where they have seen it, and the fact that it seems to live at depths ranging widely from 500 to 1,800 feet, and in water temperatures varying from 70 degrees in the Sea of Cortez to 48 degrees in the waters of Monterey.
Matsumoto and Raskoff have published their findings in the Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom. -- David Perlman
