ABOVE: ENOSHIMA AQUARIUM, JAPAN (GAKU YAMAMOTO)

The world now has one more species of named jellyfish and it’s been hiding right under scientists’ noses for more than a decade. Tima nigroannulata, the species formally described in a June 8 paper in Zoological Science, was mistaken for a closely related cousin until genetic analyses revealed otherwise.

When the animals, nicknamed elegant jellyfish, were initially collected off the coast of Japan, they were assumed to be T. formosa, a species that lives in northern Atlantic waters. Researchers had even kept the animals alive and reproducing for more than 15 years at two public aquariums in Japan with the label T. formosa. Their uniqueness was only revealed when DNA sequencing of the animals’ tissues, completed at Hawai‘i Pacific University, did not match any known species.

A fully grown adult is about the size of a human palm, with...

Each elegant jellyfish has granules of pigment around the base of its umbrella, creating a black ring of spots, and in some cases, those freckles extend to the top of its tentacles. In fact, the species name nigroannulata is derived from the Latin words for black and ring: niger and annulus, respectively.

Tima nigroannulata swimming in Japan’s Kamo Aquarium, where it had originally been labeled as one of its close cousins
Kamo Aquarium, Japan (Shuhei Ikeda)

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Newly named jellyfish Tima nigroannulata swimming in Japan’s Kamo Aquarium.

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