Disc jellyfish - Zoological and botanical plate - Ernst Haeckel, Kunstformen der Natur

Engraving reproduction of: Disc jellyfish

Original title Discomedusae - Scheibenquallen

Poster of Linantha - Cnidarians of the class Acraspedes (Order Discomedusae)

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This information is over 120 years old and some of it may be outdated!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 of Cannostomes (Cannostomae)

Scientific notice (extract) accompanying the poster print of Discomedusae - Disc jellyfish :

The Cannostomes form the oldest of the three suborders of sailfish or Discomedusae, characterized by the presence of a long oral tube that emerges from the center of the umbrella. Below, this cylindrical or prismatic four-sided oral tube is divided into four short, often fringed lobes, surrounding the quadrangular mouth opening. Above, this tube leads to the central stomach cavity, where four interradial gastric filaments (gastral filaments, Fig. 5) or bundles of these digestive filaments (Fig. 1) move freely. Outside, in the lower gastric wall, are four or eight round gonads (Figs. 1, 2 and 9). The edge of the umbrella is divided externally into 16 lobes; between them, eight adradial mobile tentacles alternate with eight sensory or apopal bulbs (four perradial and four interradial). Each sensory bulb consists of an eye, an auditory vesicle, and an olfactory sac.

Species present on the naturalist plate of Disc jellyfish - Linantha :

• Linantha lunulata
• Palephyra primigenia
• Zonephyra zonaria
• Strobila monodisca
• Nauphanta challengeri
• Atolla Wyvillei