Researchers caught a new species of jellyfish off Australia's northwest coast in 2013 — and they still can't explain it.
The Keesingia gigas is a recently discovered type of Irukandji jellyfish — but unlike its fingernail-sized cousins, Keesingia gigas is about the length of a human arm. Like all Irukandji jellyfish, it carries a potentially fatal venom that can cause pain, nausea, even stroke or heart failure. That's scary, but explainable. What's head scratching is that no specimen of Keesingia gigas has ever been photographed or collected with tentacles.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
5 sunny-side up cartoons about egg pricesCartoons Artists take on inflated prices, double standards, and more
-
'Swimming in the sky' in northern BrazilThe Week Recommends The pools of Lençóis Maranhenses are clear and blue
-
An ailing Pope Francis – and the vultures circling in the VaticanTalking Point Caught between his progressive inner circle and an influx of conservatism, the Holy Father should 'brace' himself for a battle
-
Europe records big leap in renewable energySpeed Read Solar power overtook coal for the first time
-
Blue Origin conducts 1st test flight of massive rocketSpeed Read The Jeff Bezos-founded space company conducted a mostly successful test flight of its 320-foot-tall New Glenn rocket
-
US won its war on 'murder hornets,' officials saySpeed Read The announcement comes five years after the hornets were first spotted in the US
-
Dark energy data suggest Einstein was rightSpeed Read Albert Einstein's 1915 theory of general relativity has been proven correct, according to data collected by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
-
New DNA tests of Pompeii dead upend popular storiesSpeed Read An analysis of skeletal remains reveals that some Mount Vesuvius victims have been wrongly identified
-
NASA's Europa Clipper blasts off, seeking an oceanSpeed Read The ship is headed toward Jupiter on a yearslong journey
-
Detailed map of fly's brain holds clues to human mindSpeed Read This remarkable fruit fly brain analysis will aid in future human brain research
-
Blind people will listen to next week's total eclipseSpeed Read While they can't see the event, they can hear it with a device that translates the sky's brightness into music
