Often we find pale markings of no definable shap>e. 

 Those unrecognizable ones must represent some of the 

 shapeless masses of jelly-like material that lie about on any 

 sea floor. There was enough to them to start the chemical 

 process that built a concretion, but they tell us nothing defi- 

 nite. Others have a shape revealing some soft-tissued crea- 

 ture gently buried while yet intact. Among these are bril- 

 liantly visible jellyfish. 



Here and there about the world there have been finds of 

 fossil jellyfish. The Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, which 

 will occupy a four-foot shelf when fully published, devotes 

 only 27 pages to an exhaustive surve\- of the world's fossil 

 jellvfish. They are not abundant. But they are dispropor- 

 tionately interesting because they represent imusual forms 

 of preservation. Paleontologists, like other people, savor ex- 

 ceptions. One treasures the improbable. We like jellyfish. 



A few years ago, one of the collectors cooperating with 

 the Museum, Jim Turnbull of Libertyville and the U. S. 

 Marines, dropped in to see us with a perfectly fine jelh-fish 

 in one of the familiar ironstone concretions. Recognizing 

 its significance, Jim kindly gave it to the Museum for per- 

 manent deposit. We jokingly ordered some more. He re- 

 turned to the strip mines, to the hill where he had found 

 that one, and the following week was back with two more, 

 which he also deposited with us. 



Jim's jellyfish are large and splashy specimens, four or 

 five inches across the bell, with groups of tentacles almost 

 that long hanging from four corners. Faint dark lines cross- 

 ing the bell correspond to certain structures known as septa 

 that similarly divide the bell of some modern jellyfish into 

 four areas. When Professor Ralph Johnson saw the speci- 

 mens, he recognized them as being very clearly members of 

 a living group, the Order Carybdeida, but a species new 

 to science. 



Somewhat earlier, I had the privilege of examining the 

 collection of Mr. and Mrs. Ted Piecko of Chicago, collec- 

 tors who also cooperate with the Museum. Among their 

 fossils were several small concretions containing another 

 kind of jellyfish. The Pieckos generously deposited several 

 of them at the Museum. The Piecko specimens were tiny, 

 less than an inch across, light pink against a darkly oxidized 

 background. They had eight stubby litde tentacles evenly 

 spaced around the edge, with a velum, or litde shelf, around 

 the inner edge of the bell. But the clinching point was the 

 mouth, a small x-shaped impression on a little mound in the 

 center. Again, an undoubted jellyfish, but one not so closely 

 modeled on the lines of any known modern form. 



Now we had two kinds of Pennsylvanian jellyfish from 

 the strip mines. As Dr. Johnson and I visited collections in 

 the homes of other cooperative strip-mines enthusiasts, we 

 saw other specimens of the same two jellyfish, but no addi- 

 tional forms. It was time to make them known to science. 



Thereupon, according to the time-honored practice of 

 collaborating authors. Dr. Johnson wrote the descriptions 

 and handed me the typescript. I made changes and addi- 

 tions and subtractions in red pencil and handed him the 

 miuilated remains. He rearranged it, keeping some of my 



Octomedusa pieckorum 



work and restoring some of his. This resulted in a nice, 

 clean typescript; I made some more red hen-tracks. He 

 weeded them out, the paper was re-typed, and we sub- 

 mitted the result to the Chief Curator of Geology. From 

 him it went off to a reader outside the Museum and re- 

 turned with blue pencil marks. \Ve accepted some of the 

 pencilling, re-typed the manuscript, and sent it again to the 

 Chief Curator, from whom it went first to the Director and 

 then to the Editor. Even so does a legislative bill pass from 

 House to Senate to President to Printer. In due course the 

 Museum Press produced a nicely printed little book on the 

 jellyfish, the product of two authors and with the advice and 

 consent of an adequate chain of authority. 



He who puts a fossil (or a living animal or plant) up)on 

 the record for the first time, has the prerogative of devising 

 its scientific name. Some of these names are frightful jaw- 

 breakers and should never have been thought up; others 

 may conceal a story or a joke. Often the scientific name is 

 based on the collector's name. \\'e elected this latter course, 

 in recognition of the collecting prowess of the donors of the 

 :* jellyfish. Anthracomedusa turnbulli says in Greek {Anthracome- 

 dusa) "Coal-Age Jellyfish" and in Latin "of Turnbull." 

 Similarly, Octomedusa pieckorum means "Eight-sided Jelly- 

 fish" (in Greek) "of the Pieckos" (in Latin). 



Soon after this little book appeared, copies of it came 

 into the hands of our cooperating collectors. Mr. A. W. 

 Kott, of Summit, Illinois, dropped in to see us one day and 

 received a copy. 'So that's what the jellyfish look like, is it?' 

 said he. 'Yes,' I replied; 'They're very rare.' Having stud- 

 ied the pictures, Mr. Kott went forth into the sfxjil heaps 

 and was back at the Museum again the following week — 

 with four hundred specimens of the little Octomedusa. 



We are in a position to say that there are jellyfish in 

 them thar hills. 



Page 6 OCTOBER 



