Category: Jellies, Anemones and kin view all from this category
Description Aequorea victoria, also sometimes called the crystal
jelly, is a bioluminescent hydrozoan jellyfish, or hydromedusa,
that is found off the west coast of North America. This species
is thought to be synonymous with Aequorea aequorea of Osamu
Shimomura, the discoverer of green fluorescent protein (GFP).
Shimomura together with Martin Chalfie and Roger Y. Tsien were
awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery and
development of this protein as an important biological research
tool. Originally the victoria species was supposed to designate
the variant found in the Pacific, and the aequorea designation
was used for specimens found in the Atlantic and Mediterranean.
The species name used in GFP purification was later disputed by
M.N. Arai and A. Brinckmann-Voss (1980), who decided to separate
them on the basis of 40 specimens collected from around
Vancouver Island. Osamu Shimomura notes that this species in
general shows gre