Кубомедузы: особенности строения и поведения

Class of cnidarians distinguished by their cube shaped medusae

Box jellyfish (class Cubozoa) are cnidarian invertebrates distinguished by their box like (i. e. cube shaped) body. Some species of box jellyfish produce potent venom delivered by contact with their tentacles. Stings from some species, including Chironex fleckeri, Carukia barnesi, Malo kingi, and a few others, are extremely painful and often fatal to humans.

The medusa form of a box jellyfish has a squarish, box like bell, from which its name is derived. From each of the four lower corners of this hangs a short pedalium or stalk which bears one or more long, slender, hollow tentacles. The rim of the bell is folded inwards to form a shelf known as a velarium which restricts the bell's aperture and creates a powerful jet when the bell pulsates. As a result, box jellyfish can move more rapidly than other jellyfish; speeds of up to per minute have been recorded. In the center of the underside of the bell is a mobile appendage called the manubrium which somewhat resembles an elephant's trunk. At its tip is the mouth. The interior of the bell is known as the gastrovascular cavity. It is divided by four equidistant septa into a central stomach and four gastric pockets. The eight gonads are located in pairs on either side of the four septa. The margins of the septa bear bundles of small gastric filaments which house nematocysts and digestive glands and help to subdue prey. Each septum is extended into a septal funnel that opens onto the oral surface and facilitates the flow of fluid into and out of the animal. Their eyes are set in clusters at the ends of sensory structures called rhopalia which are connected to their ring nerve. Each rhopalium contains two image forming lens eyes. The upper lens eye looks straight up out of the water with a field of view that matches Snell's window. In species such as Tripedalia Cystophora, the upper lens eye is used to navigate to their preferred habitats at the edges of mangrove lagoons by observing the direction of the tree canopy. The lower lens eye is primarily used for object avoidance. Research has shown that the minimum visual angle for obstacles avoided by their lower lens eyes matches the half widths of their receptive fields. Each rhopalium also has two pit eyes on either side of the upper lens eye which likely act as mere light meters, and two slit eyes on either side of the lower lens eye which are likely used to detect vertical movement. In total, the box jellyfish have 6 eyes on each of their 4 rhopalia, creating a total of 24 eyes. The rhopalia also feature a heavy crystal like structure called a statolith, which, due to the flexibility of the rhopalia, keep the eyes oriented vertically regardless of the orientation of the bell. Research indicates that, owing to the number of rhopalial nerve cells and their overall arrangement, visual processing and integration at least partly happen within the rhopalia of box jellyfish. Depending on species, a fully grown box jellyfish can measure up to along each box side ( in diameter), and the tentacles can grow up to in length. Its weight can reach However, the thumbnail sized Irukandji is a box jellyfish, and lethal despite its small size. There are about 15 tentacles on each corner. Each tentacle has about 500,000 cnidocytes, containing nematocysts, a harpoon shaped microscopic mechanism that injects venom into the victim. Many different kinds of nematocysts are found in cubozoans.

Although the notoriously dangerous species of box jellyfish are largely restricted to the tropical Indo Pacific region, various species of box jellyfish can be found widely in tropical and subtropical oceans (between 42° N and 42 °S), and Japan (such as Chironex yamaguchii), and as far south as South Africa (for example, Carybdea branchi) and New Zealand (such as Copula sivickisi). Though box jellies are known to inhabit the Indo Pacific region, there is very little collected data or studies proving this. It was only in 2014, that the first ever box jelly sightings (Tripedalia cystophora) were officially published in Australia, Thailand and the Indian Ocean. There are three known species in Hawaiian waters, all from the genus Carybdea: C. alata, C. rastoni, and C. sivickisi. Within these tropical and subtropical environments, box jellyfish tend to reside closer to shore. They have been spotted in near shore habitats such as mangroves, coral reefs, kelp forests, and sandy beaches. Recently, in 2023, a new genus and species of box jellyfish was discovered in the Indo Pacific region, specifically the Gulf of Thailand. Discovered and named after scientist L. A. Gershwin, this new species of box jellyfish, Gershwinia thailandensis, is a member of the Carukiidae family. Gershwinia thailandensis is described as its own new species as it has sensory structures with specialized horns and lacks a common digestive system among box jelly, the stomach gastric phaecellae. Due to this and other observations, structural and biological, Gershwinia thailandensis was accepted as a new species of box jellyfish.

Cubozoans are widely distributed throughout tropical and subtropical regions, yet the detection of these organisms can be quite difficult and costly due to a high amount of variation in their occurrence and abundance, their translucent body, two different life stages (medusa and polyp), and vast amounts of size variability within the different species in the class Cubozoa. Understanding the ecological distribution of cubozoans can be difficult work, and some of the costly methods like visual observations, a variety of different nets, light attraction techniques, and most recently the use of drones have had some levels of success in locating and tracking different species of cubozoa, but are limited by both anthropogenic and environmental factors. A new form of detection, environmental DNA (eDNA), has been developed and employed to help aid in the analysis of the populations of box jellyfish which can be implemented to mitigate the effects that box jellyfish have on coastal anthropogenic activities. This relatively easy and cost effective method utilizes extra organismal genetic material that can be found in the water column via shedding throughout the lifespan of an organism. In the wild, the box jellyfish will live up to 3 months, but can survive up to seven or eight months in a science lab tank.

The box jellyfish actively hunts its prey (small fish), rather than drifting as do true jellyfish. They are strong swimmers, capable of achieving speeds of up to 1.5 to 2 metres per second or about Chirodropida reproduces by external fertilization. Carybdeida instead reproduces by internal fertilization and is ovoviviparous; sperm is transferred by spermatozeugmata, a type of spermatophore. Hours after the fertilization, the female releases an embryo strand that contains its own nematocytes; both euryteles and isorhizas. Cubozoas are the only class of cnidarian that contains species that perform the “wedding dance” to transfer the spermatophores from the male into the females, including the Carybdea sivickisi species. Continuous research needs to be conducted to determine if box jellyfish are semelparity or iteroparous, or if it is species dependent.

Box jellyfish have a mitochondrial genome that is arranged into eight linear chromosomes. As of 2022, only two Cubozoan species were fully sequenced, Alatina alata and Morbakka virulenta. A. alata has 66,156 genes, the largest gene count for any Medusozoan. The mitochondrial genome of box jellyfish is uniquely structured into multiple linear fragments. Although unspecified species of box jellyfish have been called in newspapers "the world's most venomous creature" and the deadliest creature in the sea, only a few species in the class have been confirmed to be involved in human deaths; some species are not harmful to humans, possibly delivering a sting that is no more than painful. When the venom of the box jelly fish was sequenced, it was found that more than 170 toxin proteins were identified.

Hugo Flecker, who worked on various venomous animal species and poisonous plants, was concerned at the unexplained deaths of swimmers. He identified the cause as the species of box jellyfish later named Chironex fleckeri. In 1945, he described another jellyfish envenoming which he named the "Irukandji Syndrome", later identified as caused by the box jellyfish species Carukia barnesi. In Australia, fatalities are most often caused by the largest species of this class of jellyfish, Chironex fleckeri, one of the world's most venomous creatures. C. fleckeri has caused at least 79 deaths since the first report in 1883, but even in this species most encounters appear to result only in mild envenoming. While most recent deaths in Australia have been in children, including a 14 year old who died in February 2022, which is linked to their smaller body mass, The previous fatality was in 2007. At least two deaths in Australia have been attributed to the thumbnail sized Irukandji box jellyfish. People stung by these may suffer severe physical and psychological symptoms, known as Irukandji syndrome. Nevertheless, most victims do survive, and out of 62 people treated for Irukandji envenomation in Australia in 1996, almost half could be discharged home with few or no symptoms after 6 hours, and only two remained hospitalized approximately a day after they were stung.

In parts of the Malay Archipelago, the number of lethal cases is far higher than in Australia. In the Philippines, an estimated 20–40 people die annually from Chirodropid stings, probably owing to limited access to medical facilities and antivenom. The recently discovered and very similar Chironex yamaguchii may be equally dangerous, as it has been implicated in several deaths in Japan. Warning signs and first aid stations have been erected in Thailand following the death of a 5 year old French boy in August 2014. A woman died in July 2015 after being stung off Ko Pha Ngan, and another at Lamai Beach at Ko Samui on 6 October 2015. In 1990, a 4 year old child died after being stung by Chiropsalmus quadrumanus at Galveston Island, Texas, on the Gulf of Mexico. Either this species or Chiropsoides buitendijki is considered the likely perpetrator of two deaths in West Malaysia. Unreliable source: date=May 2014 The pantyhose were formerly thought to work because of the length of the box jellyfish's stingers (nematocysts), but it is now known to be related to the way the stinger cells work. The stinging cells on a box jellyfish's tentacles are not triggered by touch, but by chemicals found on skin, which are not present on the hose's outer surface, so the jellyfish's nematocysts do not fire. Vinegar is made available on Australian beaches and in other places with venomous jellyfish. there is no scientific evidence that urine, ammonia, meat tenderizer, sodium bicarbonate, boric acid, lemon juice, fresh water, steroid cream, alcohol, cold packs, papaya, or hydrogen peroxide will disable further stinging, and these substances may even hasten the release of venom. Heat packs have been proven for moderate pain relief. The use of pressure immobilization bandages, methylated spirits, or vodka is generally not recommended for use on jelly stings.

In 2011, researchers at the University of Hawaii announced that they had developed an effective treatment against the stings of Hawaiian box jellyfish by "deconstructing" the venom contained in their tentacles. Its effectiveness was demonstrated in the PBS Nova episode "Venom: Nature's Killer", originally shown on North American television in February 2012. Their research found that injected zinc gluconate prevented the disruption of red blood cells and reduced the toxic effects on the cardiac activity of research mice. It was later found that copper gluconate was even more effective. A cream containing copper gluconate has been produced, to be applied to inhibit the injected venom; although it is used by U. S. military divers, evidence that it is effective in humans is only anecdotal. In April 2019, a team of researchers at the University of Sydney announced that they had found a possible antidote to Chironex fleckeri venom that would stop pain and skin necrosis if administered within 15 minutes of being stung. The research was the result of work done with CRISPR whole genome editing in which the researchers selectively deactivated skin cell genes until they were able to identify ATP2B1, a calcium transporting ATPase, as a host factor supporting cytotoxicity. The research showed the therapeutic use of existing drugs targeting cholesterol in mice, although the efficacy of the approach had not been demonstrated in humans.