Highlights Deadly stingers identified New DNA analysis has revealed two categories of the potentially deadly Irukandji box jellyfish, or ‘stinger’. The most dangerous of the two appears to prefer inhabiting offshore waters around reefs and islands. Collaborative research between AIMS and JCU has found that Irukandji fall into two evolutionary groups, the Carukia, which includes Carukia barnesi, and the ‘pseudo-Irukandji’. This coincides with patterns derived from independent analysis of morphology, and with preliminary observations of behaviour and distribution, in which the Carukia group is found inshore and the other offshore. This finding will significantly influence most areas of Irukandji research and management, with the two groups being treated as functionally and ecologically different. Specifically, research will shift toward the assessment of distinct inshore and mid-shelf populations, and toward the study of the ecology and behaviour of solitary instead of swarming species. There is likely to be a renewed emphasis on determining the species boundaries within the Irukandji groups. Carukia barnesi, one of the known Irukandji Syndrome-causing jellyfish on the Great Barrier Reef. Photo: L. Gershwin This research will benefit people living in and visiting tropical Australia, and those associated with the tourism industry, because the common Irukandji, found nearshore, is not generally thought to be lethal although it can cause severe systemic symptoms). In other collaborative research by this team a new species of jellyfish from the GBR has been discovered and named Spectacuaria vanoppenae after AIMS’ scientist Dr Madeleine van Oppen.

November 20, 2005