This is the
purple crown jellyfish
Its scientific name is
Netrostoma setouchianum
Its scientific name is derived from the Seto Inland Sea in Japan where it was first recorded and identified in 1902
It is also known as the shrimp jellyfish because of the shrimps that are often seen under its umbrella
The purple crown jellyfish can be up to 20 cm in diameter, so it’s smaller than the moon jellyfish
With a classic bell-shaped form, it is one of the “true” jellyfish, or scyphozoans
The purple crown jellyfish is an uncommon visitor to Hong Kong with a few occurrences reported in mid- to late summer.
The species is distributed across Asia with its range extending from Pakistan to Japan.
The purple crown jellyfish feeds directly through its oral arms, using small frilled "mouthlets" distributed along each arm to capture and absorb prey.
Jellyfish don’t have lungs, so they “breathe” by diffusing oxygen from the water directly into their body cells.
The family name of this jellyfish, Cepheidae, comes from Greek mythology. It was fashionable to give species this kind of name in the 1800s, when many jellyfish were first described.
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