Image Credit: Ned DeLoach.

Will it be Tamoya lamantigro or Tamoya ohboya? Oh no! We can't announce the winner yet! We had anticipated tallying the votes, publishing our findings in a scientific journal, and then announcing the new species name. With all the pieces in place, this should have been easy, but as often happens in science - there has been an unexpected twist in the process!

Check the bottom of the page for an update!!!

About one week ago, we received a second specimen of the BBBJ and examination of it has shown that it differs from the description in our paper. In fact, it differs in a way that actually calls our main conclusion -- that the BBBJ is a new and distinct species -- into question! As a result, we have put our paper on hold for the time being, as we look at additional specimens of Tamoya, rethink our previous conclusions, and evaluate some new hypotheses to explain the discrepancies. Explanations for the differences could be:

A. BBBJ is a distinct species of Tamoya that is new.
B. The Gulf of Mexico and North Carolina specimens could be a new, distinct species.
C. There is only one wide-ranging species of Tamoya, Tamoya haplonema, and we do not need any new names.
Learn more about these hypotheses by clicking here.

We will be testing all three of these hypotheses over the coming months. We still think we have identified a new species and if proven correct - this new species will get its new name, but we have more work to do in order to be certain enough to proceed with publication. In fact, we really need to look at a bunch more specimens of Tamoya, particularly those from Brazil, to figure out what is going on.

We have already contacted two excellent Brazilian jellyfish scientists (Tim Marques and André Morandini), and they are anxious to join the team and help us sort this problem out. Although we wish for expediency's sake that this worked out exactly as we had envisioned, this certainly illustrates how science is collaborative, fun, and dynamic!

We notified the submitter of the winning name, to let her know the status of our efforts and we received the following wonderful response:

Thank you very much for keeping us informed in such a timely manner. I am very excited that my name has won. As I explained to everyone: this scientific name will exist throughout all human history. How cool is that! Unreal, that another jelly was sent last week. Wow, science sure is dynamic and I love the sense of integrity that you have too. These are the lessons that I try to teach my students. This will be a great discussion point for my marine bio students in August. Thank you again for opening up the "naming opportunity" to the public, this always stimulates more interest in the sciences and give us (teachers) great opportunities for class discussions.

Thanks again for submitting your suggestions and voting for the winner - we will keep you posted as the story unfolds!

UPDATE: We can finally announce the winner. Click here to find out who won!