Sea wasp (box jellyfish) - a deadly sea monster

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:47

The sea wasp (box jellyfish) belongs to the class of box jellyfish cnidaria. This multicellular is a rare and very dangerous marine animal for humans. In nature, there are a huge number of different types of jellyfish, but this sea monster is considered the most poisonous on the planet. It stings like a well-known wasp, only instead of one sting, box jellyfish have a hundred times more of them. Their poison is death for all living organisms. Over the past century, these predators have killed about a hundred people. If a diver gets into a flock of sea wasps, then he has practically no chance of returning to the shore.

Who is called a sea wasp?

A large number of dangerous predatory creatures lurk in the depths of the sea, many of which have not yet been studied at all. Who is called the sea wasp, who swims up in an invisible shadow and injects a lethal dose of poison? This monster - box jellyfish - is almost impossible to see in the water, people call it "invisible death".

You can't call this creature a monster when you see it. These are relatively small jellyfish, shaped like a cube or a bottle. The body is about 5 cm in diameter, although there are rareindividuals in which the dome reaches 20-25 cm. It is better not to meet such people, since this is a real death machine. By the way, the box jellyfish was so named precisely because of the cube-shaped structure of the dome.

The tentacles of the sea wasp deserve special attention, because they are the formidable weapon of the jellyfish. In length, they reach one and a half meters, their number can reach up to 60. If you fall into such a deadly "embrace", then a lethal end is inevitable. Glands are hidden in these long, terrible lashes, so they produce a poison that is stronger than that of a snake.

Another feature of the sea wasp scientists cannot figure out in any way - why does a jellyfish, which has no brain, need eyes, can it see the world around? Surprisingly, the box jellyfish really has eyes - as many as twenty-four. These organs are divided into 4 groups of 6 eyes each. With so many, must this creature see?

Where do sea wasps live in nature?

It would seem that a jellyfish can live in any sea water. All the expanses of water of the oceans and seas are subject to these miracles with tentacles, but this is an incorrect statement. The sea wasp, for example, lives only in Australia. A favorite place for marine predators is the northern shores, in those waters there is a relatively shallow depth and a large accumulation of corals.

Poison monster lifestyle

As mentioned earlier, the sea wasp is an active dangerous predator. When hunting, the box jellyfish keeps completely still, but as soon as the prey touches the tentacles invisible in the water, it immediately receives a large dose of poison. And the jellyfish stings a fewtimes in a row, so that the victim quickly died. The poison is very strong, it affects the nervous system, the cardiovascular system and affects the skin.

The sea wasps feed on shrimps, small crabs and small fish. The predator pulls the stung prey with tentacles to the dome and sucks it inward, where it calmly digests.

Box jellyfish hunt in the coastal zone, but keep far from the coast. During a storm or high tide, when the sea is rough and strong waves roll on the shore, these poisonous creatures often make their way straight to the beaches where people swim.

Reproduction

The sea wasp goes through the same breeding stages as other jellyfish. First, predators lay eggs, larvae appear from them, which attach to the bottom and then turn into polyps. Polyps reproduce by budding.

After a certain time, the body of the jellyfish breaks away from the polyp and swims away to do its black deeds in the open spaces of the sea. Without a jellyfish, an abandoned polyp dies instantly.

Can a sea wasp sting?

As mentioned earlier, the box jellyfish poses a great threat to human life. Although we will not make such a bloodthirsty predator out of her, she only attacks what can serve as food. People are not included in this list; when meeting with them, the sea wasp prefers to swim away. A sea monster can sting a person, but only by chance, when it does not have time to dodge a collision. Most often, divers are exposed to such danger.

After receiving several doses of the strongest poison, the body instantly begins to react. The skin turns red, the stung feels unbearable pain, from which there is no escape, the burn site swells terribly. Dizziness, fainting, high fever - these consequences of a meeting with a sea wasp may well end in respiratory arrest and cardiac arrest. Death can occur in the very first minutes after a collision with deadly tentacles, or it can occur in a day. It all depends on the amount of poison injected.

This "invisible death" swims very well, can quickly turn and maneuver between corals and algae, moves relatively quickly under water - up to 6 meters per minute. It is possible to consider transparent predators only in shallow water, the warm sandy bottom is the best place for their existence and reproduction. In the daytime, sea wasps stay at the bottom, with the first twilight they emerge to the surface.

To protect beachgoers from jellyfish, lifeguards put up protective nets, set up warning signs along the shore, but unfortunately, this does not guarantee people complete safety in places where sea wasps are found - the most poisonous among jellyfish.