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THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM MAGAZINE. 



A CRAWLING JELLY-FISH FROM PORT JACKSON 



By E. A. BRIGGS, B.Sc, Lecturer in Zoology, University of Sydney. 



X '^ « 



THE NEWLY DISCOVERED JELLY-FISH IS ONE-EIGHT OF AN INCH IN DIAMETER. 



To the rich and varied fauna of Port 

 Jackson there has recently been added a 

 new and interesting form lielonging to the 

 curious little group of animals known as 

 crawling jelly-fishes. 



The creeping or crawling jelly-fish from 

 Port Jackson was first olitained in March. 

 1917, from a collection of sea-weeds, which 

 had been scraped from the sides of a rock- 

 hewn bathing pool at Point Piper, a sand- 

 stone headland on the southern shore of 

 Port Jackson. al)out two and three-quarter 

 miles from the entrance to the harbour. 



Some two years later a further search 

 for the crawling jelly-fish was conducted 

 at Point Piper, from low water mark down 

 to three to five feet below it. The material 

 was obtained by scraping down the face of 

 a weed-covered wall and collecting the dis- 

 lodged masses of sea-weed and other 

 marine growths in a small hand dredge, 

 .^t the same time a net of fine silk attached 

 to a wire ring on the end of a light pole 

 was swept backwards and forwards through 

 the water, in order to catch any specimens 



which might have been set free during the 

 scraping of the wall. 



L^n fortunately, the animal is rather rare, 

 but subsequent visits to the same locality 

 yielded a number of specimens, thus afford- 

 ing an opportunity of oliserving its habits, 

 which are little known. 



Previous to the discovery of a crawling 

 jelly-fisli in Sydney Harbour, these animals 

 were known only from the Falkland 

 Islands, the Cape of Good Hope, Kerguelen 

 Island and Antarctica, while two species 

 had also been recorded from the Northern 

 Hemisphere. 



The crawling jelly-fish from Port Jack- 

 son is exceedingly small ; its body is only 

 the size of a pin's head, and is shaped like 

 a miniature umbrella, with a short, thick 

 handle, and a fringe of tentacles around 

 the edge. Each tentacle consists of a main 

 stem, which is divided at its extremity into 

 an upper and a lower branch. On the 

 upper branch are borne the batteries of 

 stinging-capsules, by means of which the 

 jelly-fish is able to ward off the attacks of 



