Occurrence of organo-arsenicals in jellyfishes and their mucus

Water-soluble arsenic compound fractions were extracted from seven species of jellyfishes and subjected to analysis by high-performance liquid chromat ography-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (HPLC-ICP-MS) for arse nicals. A low content of arsenic was found to be the characteristic of jell yfish. Arsenobetaine (AB) was the major arsenic compound without exception in the tissues of the jellyfish species and mucus-blobs collected from some of them. Although the arsenic content in Beroe cucumis, which preys on Bol inopsis mikado, was more than 13 times that in B. mikado, the chromatograms of these two species were similar in the distribution pattern of arsenical s. The nine species of jellyfishes including two species treated in the pre vious paper can be classified into arsenocholine (AC)-rich and AC-poor spec ies. Jellyfishes belonging to Semaostamae were classified as AC-rich specie s. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.