[img=http://nas.er.usgs.gov/XIMAGESERVERX/2010/20100310110820.jpg]
Off the Florida Keys, hundreds of stinging tentacles dangle from a pink meanie a new species of jellyfish with a taste for other jellies. When pink meanies were first observed in large numbers in the Gulf of Mexico in 2000, they were though to be drymonema dalmatinum, a species known since the late 1800s and usually found in the Mediterranean Sea, the Caribbean Sea, and off the Atlantic coast of South America. Recently, though, scientists using genetic techniques and visual examinations have revealed that this pink meanie is an entirely new species, drymonema larsoni, named after scientist Ron Larson, who did some of the first work on the species in the Caribbean. Moreover, the pink meanie appears to be so different from other known scyphozoans, or true jellyfish, that it forced the scientists to create a whole new animal family, a biological designation two levels above species. The new scyphozoan family, the first since 1921 is called Drymonematidae and includes all Drymonema species.