An eerie-looking box jellyfish that boasts 24 eyes in total has been found, and it comes from a strain of the world's most poisonous animals.
With a highly dangerous sting and a plentiful helping of beady eyes, the Tripedaliidae jellyfish species has gained a new and toxic member.
Discovered in Hong Kong's Mai Po Nature Reserve, the new strain of the species, named Tripedalia, boasts a sting that can deal some serious damage and a relation to jellyfish that can already kill.
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The colourless little cube may look either cute or disgusting, but its relation to the Australian box jellyfish is a sign to be cautious around the new creature.
Transparent and colourless, the relative to the most venomous ocean-going animal in the world gave scientists quite the shock.
Tripedalia's have three tentacles which measure about four niches long and the ends of those limbs are flat and pedal-shaped, likened to that of an oar.
Ongoing research into the effectiveness of those flat, paddle-like arms is ongoing, but it is believed the Tripedalia can swim faster than other jellyfish because of them, New York Post reported.
Hong Kong Baptist University has since published their findings so far and said the species was the "first found" at the site.
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Qiu Jianwen, professor at the Department of Biology at HKBU, said: "We named the new species Tripedalia maipoensis to reflect its type locality — where the new species was first found.
"Although it is currently known only in Mai Po, we believe that this species is also distributed in the adjacent waters of the Pearl River Estuary, as the gei wais (shrimp ponds) are connected to the estuary through a tidal channel."
Researchers, including a team from the University of Manchester, have since collected shrimp samples over the last three summers.
It was during the tests of data collated from 2020 to 2022 that a new species was found, the Tripedalia.
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