Venomous jellyfish as long as blue whales could be coming to a beach near YOU
VENOMOUS jellyfish as big as blue whales have been seen in British waters, with visitors to the seaside urged to watch their step as they can deliver a nasty sting.
Five people in Ireland needed hospital treatment earlier this month after close encounters with the lion’s mane jellyfish last month – and now they’ve been spotted swimming off coastlines in such far-apart areas Cumbria, Blackpool, Anglesey and Ayrshire.
The otherworldly creatures can grow to enormous sizes, with the largest on record found of Massachusetts Bay in the USA in 1870.
This specimen had a bell diameter – roughly equivalent to the head and torso in vertebrates – of 2.3 metres, plus tentacles measuring a whopping 37 metres.
By comparison, the blue whale – officially the largest animal ever to have existed – typically measures just 30 metres.
Dr Nick Fleming, a marine biologist and jellyfish specialist at Swansea University, said: “These jellyfish are part of a community of jellyfish present all around UK coasts every year.
“These are not exceptional circumstances.
“Sometimes there are years where we see more of them, and sometimes we see less.”
He described the lion’s mane as “probably one of the most venomous jellyfish, with a sting like very bad nettle sting”.
Steer clear of them if you see them on the beach – they can still sting
He advised: “Steer clear of them if you see them on the beach – they can still sting.”
The best way to deal with a sting was with warm or hot water, which neutralises the venom, Dr Fleming said, while vinegar is also sometimes used to treat stings.
Dr Fleming added: “The sting is like a toxin, and the best way to neutralise a toxin is to put as much hot water on as possible.
"Vinegar does work, but to really nullify the venom, use water of 45 degrees or more, or even a heat pack.
“Some people might enter an anaphylactic shock from jellyfish stings – but this only happens on very rare occasions.
“The nettle-like stings they can produce will be felt for a couple of hours."
Jellyfish which wash up on Britain’s shores will sometimes wash out to sea again, but as soon as the creatures come out of the water and hit the air, they begin disintegrating in any case.
Dr Fleming said: “Their stings are a mechanism for them to feed – they will render food harmless and inactive and then start to eat it.
“They are a self-defence mechanism too – though the lion’s mane can be quite an efficient predator.
“They normally only last a couple of months before dying off. They form aggregations to mate and reproduce, which is why you get mass strandings on occasion.
"Lion’s mane appear at the back end of the summer season – they are usually the last of the big jellyfish aggregations to wash ashore each year.
“There’s certainly nothing unusual in seeing them at this time.”
How to treat a jellyfish sting
The Irish Independent reported earlier this month that five people in Irish waters had needed to be treated for stings.
Mostly recently, 14-year-old Jack Dunne was stung while swimming at Port Beach in County Louth by a “huge” jellyfish which stuck to his shoulder and chest.
His mother Melissa said "Its tentacles went around his legs and waist.
"His friends rang me and when we got to the beach he was on his hands and knees and finding it hard to breathe."
He was taken to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda.
His mum said: "By the time we got to the hospital he was starting to lose the feeling in one of his legs with the pain.
"It was a horrible experience for him."
The hospital gave him strong anti-histamines and anti-inflammatories and he recovered by the next day.