How to photograph jellyfishes for identification

Dr Dawson kindly shared some detailed tips on how to photograph jellyfishes to aid identification.

Click on diagram for full sized image.

The major characteristics used in identifying medusae are these below, which are also shown in the above diagram.

• pattern of radial canals (see also here: http://thescyphozoan.ucmerced.edu/Biol/Anat/RhizoCanal.html)
• the distribution and number of tentacles (e.g. none in rhizostomes, 8, 24, 16, up to hundreds in semaeostomes)
• the number and shape of the oral arms (8 in rhizostomes in lots of shapes and sizes; 4 in semaeostomes from short to long ribbons or even curtain-like)
• whether there is a terminal club and the shape (in rhizostomes)
• whether there are 'filaments' on the oral arms, and their shapes
• whether there are scapulae (present in 'scapulate' rhizostomes but absent from 'inscapulate' rhizostomes; I annotated Ria's picture (photo in diagram) which shows the scapulae clearly emerging from near the top of the oral arms)

A good picture of the whole animal, such as those on the wildsingapore flickr site is most important (and oftentimes sufficient) to identify to genus, but pictures of the details in the sketch (especially whether scapulae are present in rhizostomes) will ensure we can put medusae in the right family.

Close-up photographs of the other details would allow us to get nearer to species-level descriptions (but species level IDs would only be preliminary due to confused species-level taxonomy at the moment).

Thanks Dr Dawson! We shall endeavour to take good photos of jellyfishes!

See also Dr Dawson's identification of our jellyfishes.