120 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I28 



long mature gonads. The four oral lobes, that perform startlingly like 

 fingers in grasping food, act with amazing rapidity and efficiency. 



An unidentified trachymedusan 24 mm. high and 47 mm. in diame- 

 ter was taken on July 24, 1949. The manubrium, radial canals, and 

 tentacles were translucent white, and the large, lobate gonads were 

 cream-colored. Red-eyed phronimids with red-and-white bodies 

 nestled into the subumbrellar surface of the medusa with their backs 

 to the subumbrella. They had pulled the tissue of the latter around 

 their backs and held it with their feet. These phronimids may be the 

 young of Hyperoche medusarum. 



Class SCYPHOZOA 

 Order SEMAEOSTOMEAE 



Since no special attempt was made to obtain jellyfishes, it is prob- 

 able that more species occur at Point Barrow than are included in the 

 present collection. At times the water alongshore in the vicinity of 

 Point Barrow literally teemed with them, especially during the sum- 

 mer of 1948 when ice floes were always present. They may have 

 been just as numerous in 1949 and 1950, but if so they were farther 

 from shore and less obvious. 



There has been much discussion about the species or varieties of 

 Aurelia. Some authors consider the several forms as mere varieties 

 of A. aiirita (Linnaeus), while others give them specific rank. Point 

 Barrow should be a good place to study Aurelia and Cyanea, for both 

 of these jellyfishes occurred in a variety of color forms. 



Countless thousands of a uniformly translucent, pale olive-tan 

 Aurelia ranging up to 2 inches in diameter were at the edge of the 

 water on August 12, 1948. One specimen about 5 inches in diameter 

 with brown tentacles and gonads was also observed. Again on August 

 16, 1948, the small, pale olive-tan specimens were exceedingly nu- 

 merous, and a few white specimens about 4 or 5 inches in diameter 

 with brown tentacles and gonads were seen. One specimen was white 

 with white tentacles and brown gonads. 



Young specimens of Aurelia (and also of Cyanea) up to 2.5 inches 

 in diameter withstand a wide range of temperature. Taken into the 

 laboratory from water barely above freezing, they will live for days 

 in pans of water that soon reaches room temperature. 



Cyanea capillata (Linnaeus) was also exceedingly abundant, but 

 it occurred more consistently throughout the summers from 1948 to 

 1950 than did Aurelia. Specimens usually ranged in color from pale 

 tan to yellowish brown with dark-brown canals and tan to brown 



