Pelagia benovici

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Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Cnidaria
Class:	Scyphozoa
Order:	Semaeostomeae
Family:	Pelagiidae
Genus:	Pelagia
Species:	P. benovici
Binomial name
Pelagia benovici Piraino, Aglieri, Scorrano & Boero, 2014

Pelagia benovici (Piraino, Aglieri, Scorrano & Boero, 2014) is a jellyfish in the family Pelagiidae, along with Pelagia noctiluca.

In Latin, Pelagia means "of the sea". The team who discovered this jellyfish named it benovici, after a late colleague, Adam Benovic.^[1][2]

Classification

P. benovici is an animal, thus non-photosynthetic, multicellular eukaryote, in the phylum Cnidaria. Being a cnidarian it is diploblastic, having an ectoderm and endoderm separated by an ectodermally derived mesoglea that can be cellular or acellular.

It is a member of the cnidarian class Scyphozoa and adapted to a pelagic mode of life. Whereas most scyphozoan jellyfish (also called scyphomedusae) have a complex life cycle with both the pelagic (swimming) jellyfish, or medusa, stage and a bottom-living polyp stage, Pelagia has adapted in such a way that the polyp stage is absent, thus direct development exists. The male and female jellyfish spawn respectively sperm and eggs, which develop directly into young jellyfish.

Pelagia, like other jellyfish in the scyphozoan order Semaeostomeae are mainly distinguished from the other orders by having simple oral arms with frilled or folded lips. The order semaestomae comprises three families: Pelagiidae, Cyaneidae,and Ulmaridae, distinguishable by the following characters:

• 1. Gastrovascular cavity divided by radial septa into rhopalar and tentacular pouches.
  • a. Pouches simple and unbranched – Pelagiidae
  • b. Pouches branched – Cyaneidae
• 2. Gastrovascular system in form of unbranched and branching canals, or with anastomosing radial canals – Ulmaridae

In addition, members of the Pelagiidae have no ring canal, and the marginal tentacles arise from umbrella margin.

References