(Schwartz, 1788)
One of the smallest scyphomedusae. Appearing mostly brown, thimbled-shaped, 10-20 mm; a few short, almost invisible, tentacles around margin; active, bell pulsating rapidly. Bell tiny, stiff-sided; top nearly flat, with coronal groove immediately below; sides straight, with 16 vertical flutings (elongate pedalia); no exumbrellar warts. Marginal lappets very short, 16; tentacles minute, 8, adradial, only ca. 1.5 times as long as lappets. Manubrium extending to 2/3 of bell height, 4-sided, mouth with 4 large recurved lips. From floor of stomach pouches 48 dark warts project down slightly into subumbrella, arranged in outer ring of 32 and two concentric inner rings of 8. Gonads elongate, slightly crescentic.
Coloration: colorful in brownish patches. Gonads, subumbrellar warts, and irregularly polygonal areas in gasrtic pouches brown; 8 rows of dark brown spots along sides of manubrium; rest colorless, transparent.
Linuche aquila is said to replace Linuche unguiculata in the Pacific, and to differ by having a ring canal and two rows of subumbrellar warts, not three, the 16 inner ones being in a single row, not two rows of eight. If the geographic and taxonomic distinctions are valid, still either form might conceivably occur in the south of either ocean. There are reports of intermediate material (Mayer, 1910; Cornelius, pers. obs.).