It is estimated that there are currently about 10 million species on our planet. And, despite centuries of study, effort and dedication, 86% of these species have not yet been discovered, as shown by various studies. That means scientists have cataloged less than 15% of the species that roam our planet Earth. Not only that: at the current rate of discovery, it is very likely that a large part of them will cease to exist before we can even document them.
The case of the oceans is not very different. The number of species that could be found in the seas is estimated between 150,000 and 10 millionbeing a million the most plausible figure for the Institute of Marine Sciences and Limnology of UNAM. Of all these, only about 250,000 are known, which means that about 70% are still a mystery.
This is the case of the animal that stars in today’s story. More than a dozen striped tentacles trail behind a translucent body, dotted with rings of different sizes. Inside, a bright red organ (possibly the gastrovascular cavity). a fascinating show for our eyes. A wonder of nature at its best.
It is actually a jellyfish. One so rare that it has only been sighted twice in its life.
The how is just as amazing. A diver off the coast of Queensland, Australia recorded a huge jellyfish swimming alongside him. Within hours he posted the video on Facebook commenting that it was bigger than a soccer ball and swam “pretty fast.” It turns out that, as some biologists later confirmed, it was the Chirodectes maculatus (meaning “spotted” in Latin), an extremely rare species of jellyfish found in Australia.
This species was described in 2005 for the first time. A team of Australian scientists led by biologist Paul Cornelius managed to capture a specimen in 1997 which they named Chiropsalmus and they commented in that article on their reluctance to dissect the animal, so they only made external observations. However, a year later, the scientist Lisa-Ann Gershwin published a study on this organism and officially moved it to the genus Chirodecteswhere it was accepted.
In this Vice report, Dr. Allen Collins, a zoologist for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, explained that although it is not possible to distinguish all the characteristics of the species Chirodectes maculatus in the video, fits the description very well. It also emphasizes that the color pattern on the jellyfish’s “bell” is different from that described by the original scientists. The one from 2005 had solid spots, while the one in the video has rings.
Even so, the expert states that it is most likely that “it is a specimen of a kind of Chirodectes closely related but not yet described” and is surprised that “something so large and conspicuous in appearance is only seen twice in history”.
As for the animal’s venom, so far there are no recorded cases of its bite in humans. Fortunately, during those tests in 1997 the jellyfish could not attach itself to the hand or forearm of some unsuspecting volunteer. However, due to their large size and the venomous nature of these chiropods, it is most likely that the Chirodectes be very poisonous. A pity, because it is a beautiful animal.
Image and video: Scuba Ventures Kavieng