Cubozoans - Natural history artistic poster - Ernst Haeckel, Kunstformen der Natur

Reproduction engraving of: Cubozoa

Original title Cubomedusae - Würfelquallen

Charybdea Poster - Cnidarians of the class Hydrozoa, Order Cubomedusae

Illustration from the book Kunstformen der Natur, which is a collection of artistic lithographs of natural sciences published by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel between 1899 and 1904.

This naturalistic illustration is part of an overall style inspired by Ernst Haeckel, which greatly influenced the emerging Art Nouveau movement at the beginning of the ^20th century. This work, illustrating the impressive beauty and great diversity of the biological world, was complemented by a certain amount of scientific information, some excerpts of which are reproduced below.

This information is over 120 years old and some of it may be outdated!

Scientific classification:

 Cnidarian Phylum (Cnidaria)
Class Scyphozoa (Acraspedae)
Order Cubozoa (Cubomedusae)

Scientific notice (extract) accompanying the Cubomedusae - Cubozoa poster print :

Cube jellyfish (Cubomedusae) are generally rare animals, mainly inhabiting deep waters, related on the one hand to the pocket jellyfish (Peromedusae, Plate 38), on the other hand to the common discoid jellyfish (Discomedusae, Plates 8, 18, 28, 88, 98). They are distinguished from these two orders by the quadrangular shape of their very domed gelatinous umbrella; this is sometimes almost cubic (Fig. 2, 5, 6) or prismatic with four faces (Fig. 8), sometimes more pyramidal (Fig. 3) or bell-shaped (Fig. 1). At the lower edge of the umbrella, from which hangs a thin marginal veil (Velarium), are the four interradial pedals, supports of the long, ringed and very mobile tentacular filaments. In the Charybdeidae (Fig. 3-8), the pedals are simple, so there are only four tentacles present; in the Chirodropidae, on the other hand (Fig. 1 and 2), the four pedals are hand-shaped, divided into several fingers, and on each finger there is a tentacle. On the four flat sides of the umbrella are located at the bottom in the middle the four perradial eyes, of very complex structure, housed in a heart-shaped niche or eye socket (Fig. 1-3, 7 and 8). The four eyes are connected to each other and to the four tentacles by a strong nerve ring; this is better developed than in all other jellyfish and descends on each side in an arc from the eye to the base of the pedals (Fig. 1, 7 and 8). At the bottom of the umbrella socket is the stomach, the mouth opening of which is surrounded at the bottom by four mouth lobes. In the four flat pouches extending from the stomach to the inner surface of the umbrella side are four pairs of ribbon-shaped gonads or sex glands, the free edge of which is elegantly curled.

Species present on the Cubozoa - Charybdea naturalist board :

• Chirodropus palmatus
• Chiropsalmus quadrigatus
• Charybdea obeliscus
• Charybdea murrayana
• Procharybdis tetraptera
• Tamoya prismatica