Menzies Art Gallery of Scientific Discovery
Chiropsella bart
Year: 2022
Medium: Acrylic on canvas, digital image
This painting represents the discovery of the box jellyfish, Chiropsella bart.
In the centre of the painting C. bart bobs along in the current with its tentacles extended, trailing off to its side. The jellyfish has four pedalia, each with five tentacles. Two eye stalks (rhopalia) are visible. On the tentacles sit the two Menzies researchers involved in the discovery: Bart Currie and Melita McKinnon.
Leading out from the tentacles, stinging cells (nematocysts) encircle the jellyfish in an abstract representation of the importance of community and connection in scientific research. In the background, knowledge flows along the ocean currents.
(Artwork owned by Menzies School of Health Research)
About the jellyfish
This unusual box jellyfish was reported in 2002 by Menzies researchers Bart Currie and Melita McKinnon. It was found to inhabit the waters of the Gove Peninsula in the Northern Territory curiously during the dry season, whereas all other known species of multi-tentacled box jellyfish (Chirodropids) are present during the wet season. This new species was much smaller in size with a less tentacles compared to other known Chirodropids.
The jellyfish was named Chiropsella bart after Professor Bart Currie, team leader of the Global and Tropical Health Division at Menzies, for his important contributions to the medical aspects within the study of jellyfish.
Jellyfish envenomate prey using nematocysts, small organelles with coiled harpoon-like tubules which shoot out of the cells releasing toxins into their prey. The nematocysts of C. bart are small and cigar shaped. No deaths have been reported from the sting of this jellyfish, only mild pain and itching which usually lasts less than two hours.