Redescription of the enigmatic jellyfish, Crambionella annandalei (Cnidaria: Scyphozoa) from Indian waters

Abstract

AbstractThe catostylid jellyfish, Crambionella annandalei was originally described by Rao (1932) based on a preserved specimen collected from the Andaman Sea. Since then, no detailed taxonomic studies have been conducted and the species is often misidentified. Here, we provide a detailed morphological re-description of C. annandalei from fresh material collected at a variety of locations along the east coast of India. The species can be distinguished from its congeners by a combination of morphological characters, the most important of which are the proportion of terminal club length to oral arm length (0.48 ± 0.031), the proportion of the distal portion of the oral arm to naked proximal portion (7.25 ± 0.268) and the body colour. The occurrence of intra-specific colour variation in fresh specimens was also observed in the present study.