It is found on the shores of Eastern Africa, Samoa, and some of the islands in the Indian Ocean.

[3] The cap is transparent, with small, whitish, wart-like muscular extensions (pedalia) at the four corners of the square base, separated by a lace-like membrane.

Adult medusae are pelagic, occasionally approaching the coasts of the Indian and western Pacific oceans, and can become frequent in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea.

[4] T. gargantua as described by Ernst Haeckel came from the Samoan Islands, and both Henry Bryant Bigelow and other naturalists agreed in identifying this species as T. bursaria and the various T. alata previously described in the Indo-Pacific.

[5] The name T. haeckeli is a synonym invented to distinguish the species from T. gargantua "sensu" Lesson (1829), different in description and not belonging to the genus Tamoya.