For all those who aren't afraid of jellyfish....

[archman]

What is weird, is why there has been a spike in their population. All they can do is speculate.

Jellyfish blooms appear to be on the rise worldwide. Current thinking is pointing fingers towards rises in ocean temperatures (which disrupts seasonality and currents), and increased nutrient flows into nearshore waters.

Jellyfish can absorb nutrients directly across their membranes, and increased nutrients generally equates with increased plankton biomass. Which are what a lot of jellies feed on.

One of those California-based Shifting Baseline Scientists once stated that Earth's future oceans would be populated with little more than jellyfish and plankton, as everything else would have been overfished. I believe the catchphrase for this is known as "Fishing Down the Food Chain".

 

[Kevfin]

Scientists once stated that Earth's future oceans would be populated with little more than jellyfish and plankton, as everything else would have been overfished. I believe the catchphrase for this is known as "Fishing Down the Food Chain".

Not a pleasant thought.

Have to come up with more varieties jellyfish foods...

 

[ScubaBabe22]

they ARE a delicacy in China, however ice cream and jellies with..hahah... jellyfish in them have yet to make the menus as popular in Japan...

 

[IwakuniDiver]

Since I live in Japan, these pests were all too real. When they first showed up, they were merely a curiosity (when the pic below was taken), but 3 weeks later, you couldn't throw a rock in the water without hitting one.

While exploring a shallow cavern, my dive buddy almost came up into 5 of them and luckilly I spotted them first. As funny as him wearing one of these guys like a hat would have been, I didn't feel like dragging his butt all the way back to the boat.

 

[DoubleDip]

"these pests" Funny, I wonder if the Jellyfish feel the same way about divers?

 

[archman]

"these pests" Funny, I wonder if the Jellyfish feel the same way about divers?

As the scarecrow said in The Wizard of Oz, "If I Only Had A Brain..."

 

[Jason Ooi]

Hi,

Good for wasabi.......yum...yum

Cheer
Jason

 

[Daylonious]

I saw that special on Discovery Channel on "Killer Jellyfish" those little irukandji (box jellyfish) are only 2cm long, and one tiny sting puts you in the hospital for 3 days as your major muscle groups lock up in pain.

The researcher and his assistant both got stung and the line I remember was

"Even with the maximum daily dose of morphine, it was only barely enough to take the edge off.."

From the www site:

About 5-45 (usually 30) minutes after being stung, the person starts to develop ‘Irukandji syndrome’ – a set of symptoms that often include severe lower back pain, muscle cramps, vomiting, restlessness and anxiety. In rare cases, the victim can suffer pulmonary oedema (fluid on the lungs), hypertension or toxic heart failure that could be fatal if not treated.

BOY that sounds like a FUN way to spend a weekend...

Makes ya scared of going to the Great Barrier Reef..

D.

 

[archman]

The fiancee of one of my co-workers was killed by a box jelly, and she got pretty messed up too. Fortunately encounters are very rare. And those irukandji-types are even rarer still. You have greater chances being eaten by a shark.

I'm glad that Caribbean box jellies are few and are not nearly as dangerous as those found in the Indo-Pacific. Still, they're a lot worse than a Man 'O War.

 

[IwakuniDiver]

"these pests" Funny, I wonder if the Jellyfish feel the same way about divers?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that Jellyfish "feel" less about divers than a cow would "feel" about the prospect of being made into a Big Mac.