New type of jellyfish discovered in Australia

A previously unknown jellyfish was reportedly spotted off Australia's east coast and has left researchers baffled.

The animal is reported to share structural characteristics with the dangerous box jellyfish found in the tropical waters in the country's north.

"It's a heck of a find," Dr. Lisa-ann Gershwin, a biologist who has described more than 200 types of jellyfish and has authored books on the marine animal, told The Sydney Morning Herald.

Gershwin said the unknown animal was definitely not the Australian box jellyfish.

"It is not Chironex fleckeri, the one we lovingly refer to as the box jellyfish," The Guardian newspaper quoted Gershwin as saying. "But it is a box-shaped jellyfish which is closely related to Chironex. My very first reaction was … that does not belong in Sydney."

A Sydney resident had caught two encounters with the jellyfish on camera.

Scott Belcher first saw it a fortnight ago near Cronulla's Shark Island, according to media reports.

Belcher initially mistook the animal for a jimble, a species of the southern box jellyfish that are not deadly.

"We swam a little further down south to Shelly beach and ran into what I thought was a rather large jimble," The Guardian quoted Belcher as saying, "but filming it [we] realized that it's a lot meaner."

The Australian box jellyfish is considered the most venomous animal in the world.

The encounters with the new jellyfish have triggered warnings about correct first aid for marine stings.

The dpa news agency contributed material to this report

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