Scuba diver Dorian Borcherds was mesmerized by the giant translucent mass of jellyfish bobbing beside him and decided to film this mysterious marine animal, ABC News reported. He spotted the jellyfish off the coast of Papua New Guinea that had marine biologists ecstatic after seeing the big blob of beauty.
The jellyfish could be the rare Chirodectes maculatus, first spotted in 1997 by a team of scientists on the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Far North Queensland. On the other hand, some experts believe it could be a new species of jellyfish.
Rare Jellyfish Could Be the C. maculatus
Mr. Borcherds, the owner of a Kavieng-based scuba dive company, was diving with a customer last December when he spotted the strange blob and shared it on social media, describing its cool markings. He noted that it was bigger than a soccer ball. Still unsure what he spotted, he called on his daughter from South Africa for help and sent her the video.
His daughter uploaded the video to The Jellyfish App, a mobile application set up by Australian Marine Stringer Advisory Services jellyfish expert Dr. Lisa-ann Gershwin. Upon seeing the footage of the giant jellyfish, Gershwin was reportedly unable to contain her excitement and initially identified it as the mysterious jellyfish C. maculatus found 25 years ago on the Great Barrier Reef.
Dr. Gershwin said she was completely gobsmacked when she received the photos and was intrigued by the jellyfish. The C. maculatus was so rare that it has never been spotted again after its first sighting. A team of Australian scientists first described the species in 2007 from the preserved specimen caught in 1997.
Dr. Gershwin has even published a paper about the classification of the jellyfish species to officially move it to the genus Chirodectes, which was accepted by the scientific community.
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A New Jellyfish Species
Despite being ecstatic that it could be the rare C. maculatus, Dr. Gershwin studied it frame by frame to confirm what species the beautiful blob that Borcherds filmed. According to ABC News, she worked closely with researchers from the Queensland Museum in Brisbane where the specimen of C. maculatus was stored.
Like the footage of the jellyfish found in Papua New Guinea, she also examined the specimen of the rare jellyfish frame by frame to compare the two. She concluded that the two jellyfish were different and that Mr. Borcherds might have discovered a new species.
She immediately called her colleague to confirm; he too believed it was a brand new species and was excited about the discovery. Dr. Gershwin is yet to submit her findings in a paper to be peer-reviewed, noting that it will not be technically discovered until the species is formally given a name and classified.
The marine biologist is meticulous in identifying the new jellyfish as she was involved in re-classifying the C. maculatus, adding pressure to be right in classifying the new species. Also, there is still the mystery of where could the jellyfish found 25 years ago in the Great Barrier Reef might have come from.
Watch the rare jellyfish swim in the video below:
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