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Family: Rhopalonematidae
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Polyp: The life cycle of this species does not include a polyp stage. Medusa: Umbrella bell-shaped, with well-developed velum. Manubrium tubular, elongated, with very short and very contractile gastric peduncle. Mouth with four simple lips. Eight narrow radial canals. With only two oval or sausage-shaped, pendent gonads located near the middle point of two opposite radial canals. Up to forty-eight long tentacles, all identical, with a terminal knob in which nematocysts are concentrated. Eight statocysts, club-shaped. Ecology and Distribution: Temperate and tropical Atlantic, with some records from South-Eastern Australia. In Bocas del Toro collected in a plankton tow near the docks of the Bocas del Toro Research Station - Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute at night. Similar taxa: Homoeonema platygonon, young medusae of Rhopalonema, Aglaura, and Amphogona |