2019 Volume 14 Issue 4 Pages 261-270
A new carybdeid species, Carybdea irregularis sp. nov., is described from the Dana Expedition 1928–30 collections of the Natural History Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, originally sampled from French Polynesia. It can be distinguished from its congeners by the combination of the following morphological features: pedalial canal knee bend rounded, 2 very narrow velarial canal roots/octant with slim, irregularly shaped canals (no canal resembles another one) and bottle tree-like gastric filaments.
Description, photo and and drawings by Bigelow (1909) on three French Polynesian carybdeid medusae, sampled in Rikitea Harbor, Mangareva, Gambier Islands (French Polynesia) during the Albatross Expedition in 1905 and identified by him as “Carybdea rastonii”, fit exactly the anatomical structures of this new species and are therefore designated to it.
Up to now, Carybdea irregularis sp. nov. is the smallest species of the genus Carybdea, maturing with at a bell height of 15 mm.
