Werner, 1975
Medusa: bell roughly 4-sided, about as tall as wide (not dish-shaped); bell margin without lappets; tentacles peripheral, interradial, 4 or in 4 groups of several, each tentacle on an simple (undivided) pedalium [in Family Carybdeidae:Carybdea alata; Tamoya haplonema; Tripedalia cystophora] or several on one palmate pedalium [in Family Chirodropidae: Chirodropus gorilla; Chiropsalmus quadrumanus]. Sense organs complex, 4, perradial, in niches in sides of bell; stomach with 4 wide perradial lobes (sacs) extending into subumbrellar cavity, the lobes incompletely separated by radial septa; mouth with single opening; gonads leaf-shaped, in 4 pairs, attached along interradial septa; opening of bell cavity partly closed by annular diaphragm (velarium).
Polypoid stage: small, seeming solitary but in fact, in species described, comprising a large developing polyp which metamorphoses totally into a young medusa (i.e., no strobilation, nor ephyra stage) and a much smaller resting polyp (Restkörper in German) which after medusa release enlarges to form the next developing polyp; without exoskeleton.
(After Kramp, 1961; Werner, 1984)
Order Cubomedusae