"City of Gonads" Jellyfish Discovered
The new species, C. medeopolis, keeps the family jewels on display.
Shaped like flying saucers, both males and females of the new jellyfish have gonads on the outsides of their bodies, unlike any of the approximately 3,000 other jellyfish species known to science.
Gonads are the reproductive glands that produce sperm in males and eggs in females.
Arranged in a "crater" at the center of the jellyfish's top side, the gonads, upon close inspection, resemble "skyscrapers in a downtown business district," said Lisa-Ann Gershwin, curator of zoology at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Launceston, Australia.
Accordingly, Gershwin gave the jellyfish the species name "medeopolis," Latin for "city of gonads."
"It's just so completely different from anything we've ever seen before," Gershwin said—in fact, the jellyfish has forced the creation of