Taxonomy and phylogeny of Australian cubozoa

Jellyfishes in the class Cubozoa are species rich and often abundant in Australian waters. They are geographically widespread in tropical and temperate waters and they have global significance both economically and recreationally as dangerous marine stingers. They are interesting evolutionarily and with respect to ecology and life history. Despite this, the taxonomy of cubozoans is too coarse to allow discrimination of closely related species, hindering further advances in all aspects of cubozoan biology. The objectives of this thesis were to revise the taxonomy of the Cubozoa based on structural characters, and to elucidate the evolutionary relationships of cubozoan species based on qualitative comparison of…