Researchers from Hong Kong Baptist University have discovered a new species of box jellyfish, called Tripedalia maipoensis, in a brackish shrimp pond in Hong Kong’s Mai Po Nature Reserve. It has a transparent and colourless body with an average length of 1.5 cm, and three tentacles that are up to 10 cm long at each of its four corners.
It is distinguished by a flat, pedal-shaped structure at the base of each tentacle and its ability to swim faster than other jellyfish. It also has 24 eyes, divided into four groups of six eyes, located in sensory depressions called rhopaliums. Two of these eyes have lenses that enable image-forming, while the other four can only sense light.
