Strange Stinger Appears
Newcastle Herald
Saturday October 19, 2002
A NEW type of jellyfish has been found on a northern Queensland beach.
A surf lifesaver stumbled across the small, mysterious marine stinger while training on The Strand, in Townsville, on Thursday.
James Cook University zoologist Jamie Seymour said yesterday that he had never seen the species.
`It's a box jellyfish but it's different,' the authority on marine stingers said.
`It is about 3cm by 3cm and it's only got four tentacles, so it puts it in the group of the irukandji-type jellyfish.'
Irukandji stingers, which are part of the box jellyfish family, inundated beaches and reefs in northern Queensland last year.
Irukandji syndrome killed two tourists this year and 116 people who had been stung were treated in hospital over summer.
Dr Seymour said research into the stingers was in its infancy.
© 2002 Newcastle Herald