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Through the ages of exploration, the enormity of the global sea has made assessments of primeval inhabitants more like rough sketches than detailed portraits.

Now, scientists have developed a definitive way to detect one of the ocean’s more exotic creatures. They say estimates of its global abundance will likely increase.

The organisms are known as ctenophores. Although superficially they look like jellyfish, they lack stings and lack the usual body pulses and rhythms that power jellyfish. Instead, it’s the vibrating hairy cilia that move them in seawater. The tiny fluff-like bundles resemble the teeth of a comb and give the creatures their other name: comb jellies.

The ripples of the cilia allow the creatures to glide forward to scavenge prey and particulate matter. Adult sizes range from a few inches to several feet. Ctenophores live in the world’s oceans, from the cliff to the sunlit zone. About 200 species have been identified. Most are bioluminescent. Typically, the colors of their lights are bluish or greenish, often shimmering or iridescent.

There are four scientists introduced a new way describing ctenophores in an upcoming article published online last month. Molecular Ecology Resources, monthly magazine. Steven HD Haddock, co-author of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California, said the team has been working on the problem for about five years, working on a wide variety of specimens collected over the decades. He said the advance would provide ” much-needed certainty” for biologists who want to learn about the true extent of ocean life.

Dr. Haddock said that if widely used, the method could cause the number of known ctenophores species to rise from 200 to 600 and possibly 800.

Dr. “It’s like taking fingerprints,” Haddock said about the technique in an interview. “It’s one of the next big things in assessing who lives in the ocean.”

The new method applies a powerful new animal identification tool to the world of ctenophore research. Her known as environmental DNA sampling. Rather than directly observing or testing an organism, it collects and analyzes bits of DNA that all living things shed into their environment. From survivors such as hair, skin, and mucus, scientists look for matches and identities by comparing environmental samples of the genetic code with DNA libraries.

The procedure has already been used for other definitions. for example, he disclosure helped. The latent presence of critically endangered organisms, including a water bug known as the scarce yellow sally stone fly. Researchers have also used it to show that Scotland has the famous Loch Ness. filled with eel DNA more monstrous than anything else.

But advances were required before these analytical tools could be applied to ctenophores. Haddock’s team designed a new set of molecular probes that enable deeper DNA probes.

“It’s like being able to read a new language,” he said.

In a series of tests, the results allowed them to identify 72 ctenophore species through their genetic signatures – nearly five times more than reported in previous databases and GenBankA library of the genetic codes of thousands of organisms maintained by the National Institutes of Health.

The precise tools will allow researchers to look with new precision at DNA sequences they’ve recovered from the wild and better understand the true diversity of marine life, the scientists say. This in turn will aid in global conservation, fisheries management and assessing things like the impact of climate change on ocean biodiversity.

Dr. “Ctenophores are largely overlooked in diversity studies because many of them are too fragile to be sampled by trawl nets,” Haddock said. “With this study, we’re trying to overcome that and give people a chance to appreciate how special and diverse these creatures are.”