contradict the
belief cubozoans are
semelparity
I live in the what is called the low country of South Carolina, along the Atlantic coast, just north of Savannah.
I work closer to the beach than I live and I am able to spend my lunch time breaks walking along the wave line dodging the people who are spending untold amounts of money to be here for just one week.
We get to the beach when ever we can and in season, I spend a lot of time in the water.
I don’t worry to much about the things that live in the ocean.
They leave me alone and I leave them alone and we do just fine.
BUT reading the article, Enjoy the beach this summer, but beware the sting of the jellyfish by Elizabeth Weise in USA TODAY on June 29, 2024 did prick at my level of awareness.
You see, Ms. Weise writes that “One concerning shift has been in the range of box jellyfish, some species of which can be deadly.
“The box jellyfish that we have an abundance of in Hawaii has recently caused injuries in various beaches in Florida. The changing range of these jellies and increasing human population density, these things all work together in U.S. waters,” said Angel Yanagihara, a research professor in the department of tropical medicine at the University of Hawaii who studies jellyfish venom.”
The only thing I know about box jelly fish is what Bill Bryon wrote in his book on travels in Australia, In a sunburned country (Broadway Books, New York, 2000) when Mr. Bryson said this:
(Remember this sounds much better if you read in the slow cadence of Mr. Bryson’s audio readings – especially that last sentence.)
But all of these are as nothing compared with the delicate and diaphanous box jellyfish, the most poisonous creature on earth. We will hear more of the unspeakable horrors of this little bag of lethality when we get to the tropics, but let me offer here just one small story.
In 1992 a young man in Cairns, ignoring all the warning signs, went swimming in the Pacific waters at a place called Holloways Beach. He swam and dove, taunting his friends on the beach for their prudent cowardice, and then began to scream with an inhuman sound.
It is said that there is no pain to compare with it.
The young man staggered from the water, covered in livid whiplike stripes wherever the jellyfish’s tentacles had brushed across him, and collapsed in quivering shock. Soon afterward emergency crews arrived, inflated him with morphine, and took him away for treatment.
And here’s the thing.
Even unconscious and sedated …
he was still screaming.
The idea of Box Jellyfish off the Carolina Coast would certainly make an impact on I spent my free time.
I had do some more research and was happy to have wikipedia tell me that 51 species of box jellyfish were known as of 2018. These are grouped into two orders and eight families.A few new species have since been described, and it is likely that additional undescribed species remain.
And not all of them have the terrible stings and venom as described by Mr. Bryson.
I was fascinated by the caption of a photograph of a jelly that had washed up on the beach that read: Box Jellyfish species Chiropsalmus quadrumanus; contradict the belief that Cubozoans are semelparity.
I was relieved!
And I don’t even know what it means.
Great words anyway!
I have yet to be stung, bit, tasted or in anyway made contact with by anything that lives in the ocean side from bumping into a dead cannon ball jelly fish so that doesn’t count as being something that lives.
I have read all the literature on what to do if I am ever stung by a jelly fish.
In my mind are countless remedies that are listed on posters, websites, beach guides and other informational websites so I feel I know what to do if I ever did get stung.
Then I got to the bottom of the Wikipedia page on Jellyfish.
Who ever wrote the contact had read all the same source information I had and had had enough.
For Wikipedia states:
Although commonly recommended in folklore and even some papers on sting treatment, there is no scientific evidence that:
urine,
ammonia,
meat tenderizer,
sodium bicarbonate,
boric acid,
lemon juice,
fresh water,
steroid cream,
alcohol,
cold packs,
papaya,
or hydrogen peroxide will disable further stinging, and these substances may even hasten the release of venom.
Heat packs have been proven for moderate pain relief.
The use of pressure immobilization bandages, methylated spirits, or vodka is generally not recommended for use on jelly stings.
Well GEE WHIZ .. there goes all my reading.
What does work?
Well this article says vinegar and that vinegar is made available on Australian beaches and in other places with venomous jellyfish.
But just to cover itself, the article also states, “A 2014 study reported that vinegar also increased the amount of venom released from already-discharged nematocysts; however, this study has been criticized on methodological grounds.”
For me?
Happy that Box Jellyfish species Chiropsalmus quadrumanus contradicts the belief that Cubozoans are semelparity, I will continue to walk along the beach.
If I could somehow block Bill Bryson out of my brain …
No Haiku For You 