Unusual giant jellyfish washes up on a Tasmanian beach

SCIENTISTS are working to classify a new species of giant jellyfish, after kids discovered the massive blob on a beach south of Hobart.

Huge ... The giant jellyfish that washed up on a Tasmanian beach. Picture: Josie Lim

SCIENTISTS are working to classify a new species of giant jellyfish, after kids discovered the massive blob south of Hobart last month.

The 1.5 metre monster was found by a family walking along a beach near Howden, just south of the Tasmanian capital.

It's not the first time this type of giant has been reported off the coast of Tasmania, and the research body has also captured specimens.

CSIRO scientist Lisa-Ann Gershwin told ABC local radio while the species has been spotted before, it's still technically unclassified and new to science.

"It's a whopper. We do get large jellyfish and this one just happened to be this absolutely enormous specimen," she said.

"I do hear from time to time people tell me 'we found this one that was really big', but this one really is, really big.

"[We] finally got specimens this year of it, so it's new to science, but it's not a brand new thing completely out of left field.

"It's one of these things that really makes us come face-to-face with the fact that there are things we don't know about out there in nature, particularly in the ocean."

Twelve-year-old Xavier Lim was walking with other family members when it was spotted.

"We were at the beach looking for shells and dad was like 'Whoa! Look at that' ... I kind of touched it. it was pretty cool," he said.