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Potentially Painful Clinging Jellyfish Return To NJ Shores

🔴 Clinging jellyfish have returned on schedule to the Jersey Shore 🔴 They were first spotted in NJ in 2016 in back bays 🔴 Their sting can cause great pain and paralysis

The tiny jellyfish with the violent sting, the clinging jellyfish, has returned to New Jersey farther south than ever.

Clinging jellies are a non-native species from the Pacific Ocean that first appeared in Brick in 2016, according to Paul Bologna, director of the Marine Biology and Coastal Sciences Program at Montclair State University.

The quarter-size species with 60 to 90 tentacles that contain stinging cells show up in back bays anywhere from Shrewsbury to Cape May but have become more common at southern beaches. They made their first appearance of the year in the northern part of Barnegat Bay right on schedule.

"A few were good size, a lot of them were relatively small. So I think we're at sort of the starting point of what we normally see this time of year," Bologna said. "They get kind of ramped up at this point in June, it's kind of a major timeframe where they're relatively abundant and where swimmers and people using the water need to be most careful."

Tour operator Travis Davis of Salt Marsh Safari found one when he put a net in the water during a tour off North Wildwood, the fartherst south in New Jersey where they've been reported.

Clinging jellyfish

Clinging jellyfish (NJ DEP) Paralysis and pain

The danger of the clinging jellyfish's sting is their toxins that can cause paralysis. The pain their sting causes is also not felt for another couple of hours.

"If you've been stung by a bee or a wasp or a jelly, usually you get a lot of pain and then it kind of subside. These guys, you tend to get stung, and then it's three, four or five hours later that the pain really starts to kick in as the paralysis and toxins work through your system," Bologna said.

The sting causes pain and muscles to tense up "like a giant Charlie horse and creates incredible pain," Bologna said, adding it's different than a regular jellyfish sting.

If you do get stung by a clinging jellyfish what should you do? Prescription painkillers will help.

"A lot of times they provide pain painkillers in order for you to kind of work through as the toxin kind of get through your system. It often times a couple of days to kind of work through. So people are a lot of pain. So normally, it's a short-term prescription for various painkillers," Bologna said.

You can protect yourself against them by wearing a wet suit or waders. Or wait until after the Fourth of July when water temperatures are warm and the clinging jellyfish start to leave, Bologna said.

Testing for Clinging Jellyfish

(Dr. Paul Bologna) Keeping track of clinging jellyfish

Bologna said sightings of clinging jellyfish can be reported to the New Jersey Jelly Spotters Facebook page. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection also keeps track of them.

"They've got a website that they update on the clinging jellies, where they've been located. When they do their sampling, they upload those. When we are doing our sampling we go ahead and give them an update. And when the public finds them and sees them, we add those in as well," Bologna said.

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More Jellyfish Are Appearing On Hilton Head Beaches. Here's What To Know

Have you had the chance to head out to any part of Hilton Head Island's 12 miles of white sand beaches lately?

If so, you may have noticed some of the many beached jellyfish that have washed ashore on the island's beaches.

With the weather warming up, the number of jellyfish stranded or floating among the surf are on the rise once again.

The phenomenon is natural, tends to happen yearly and can even be expected by locals most of the time, but it's understandable that the scattering of dead jellies on the shore and many more floating in the shallow surf can be alarming or even off-putting to many beachgoers.

Nearly 100 Portuguese man-of-war washed up on shore Monday, according to the Hilton Head Island Beach Patrol.

What are they?

Have you ever been curious about the dome-shaped, tentacled creatures floating through the water?

Although the term jellyfish may come to mind, that's not the proper name to call them.

"Jellyfish are not really fish, of course, because a fish's anatomy is centered around its backbone, whereas the jellyfish is a dome-shaped invertebrate. Therefore, it's more accurate to refer to them simply as 'jellies,'" states the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In fact, these roving creatures are actually most closely related to corals, sea anemones, sea whips and hydrozoans.

What type of jellies does Hilton Head Island have?

Frequently, the most commonly found jelly seen around Hilton Head's shores and around South Carolina is the cannonball jelly. Luckily for many avid beachgoers, this round, smaller-sized jelly generally does not sting and poses no large threat to curious or nearby families.

A cannonball jellyfish washed ashore along Hilton Head Island's coast.

However, this isn't the only species you might find in the area.

"We have several species that occur in our waters besides the cannonball/cabbagehead, however you locally want to call it," Dr. Joe Staton of the Department of Natural Sciences Chair at the University of South Carolina Beaufort, has said to The Island Packet.

"There's also sea nettles which are kind of moon jellies that occur worldwide. We get those here. We get Portuguese man o' war which are not actually in the same group as the jellies with the bells."

Cannonball jellies are abundant along the coast of South Carolina. If you find one dead on the beach, it's common to find them without most of their color, as this tends to occur soon after they wash ashore. Some people even accidentally step on them while on the beach without realizing and end up getting a slippery surprise.

A cannonball jellyfish washed ashore on Hilton Head Island.

Once stranded on the beach, cannonball jellies can't survive long out of water and eventually become a food source for shorebirds, crabs, sea turtles and other critters that live along the coast. These jellies are also a favored snack for the endangered leatherback sea turtle and provide nourishment for the visiting mothers and soon-to-be hatching eggs in the future.

Another sea turtle species that visits the area and feeds on these jellies is the loggerhead sea turtle. They are the most common kind of sea turtle to use the shores of Hilton Head Island as their nesting ground, according to hiltonheadisland.Org.

Aside from cannonball jellies, sea nettles can be found off the island's coast and in the surf. These jellies are responsible for the most stings on Hilton Head Island, with the most recorded stings in one day being in the hundreds.

Another one that can be found in the area is the Portuguese man o' war. Even though it may resemble a jelly, the Portuguese man o' war is what is known as a siphonophore and appears bluish-purple color.

If you come across one on the beach or in the surf, they appear similar to an inflated plastic bag.

A Portuguese Man-Of-War was spotted on Hilton Head's beach on Nov. 11 between the Sonesta Resort and Coligny beach. The venomous Portuguese Man-Of-War is also known as a "bluebottle" jellyfish and can deliver an "excruciatingly painful" sting to humans even weeks after it's dead.

"The important thing about the Portuguese man o' war, if they're washed up on the beach, they're like dead bees. They can still sting you, so don't mess with them," Staton had said.

The best advice when around these multitudes of dead jellies is to not directly touch a dead jellyfish if you don't know what kind it is.

A Portuguese man-of-war is, center, photographed on Wednesday amid some seaweed at Hilton Head Island's Coligny Beach. The jellyfish-like creature is a floating colonial coelenterate with a number of polyps and a conspicuous float. Beachgoers should avoid them because, like a jellyfish, they have tentacles that can cause painful stings even after having being washed ashore.

Why are there sometimes so many jellies washed ashore at once?

In most cases, jellies travel in groups called "blooms."

These assemblies tend to form in a short amount of time after the population expands following a rise in water temperatures, as they prefer and thrive in warmer waters. Thus, these clusters tend to form and follow the spring and summer months.

Over 100 cannonball jellyfish dot the shoreline on Hilton Head Island on April 19, 2021. The jellyfish, which don't sting, wash up each year in spring and early summer.

Rough winds, storms, swells, tides and currents can send the jellies to shore, which in certain events can happen all at once. A cooling of the water temperatures can also contribute to mass deaths of the jellies that will eventually get washed ashore or consumed.

How to tell if you've been stung

Not sure if you've come across a floating jelly or stepped on one on the beach and have been stung? Always consult with a lifeguard if one is nearby or evaluate the potential sting area yourself if you know what to look for.

Myshel Rodenbeck, a lifeguard with Shore Beach Services on Hilton Head Island, shows her recent jellyfish sting on Coligny Beach on Aug. 25, 2016 . It's not the first time she's been stung, and she said getting stung can help lifeguards be more empathetic when they're treating beachgoers.

According to Mayo Clinic, common signs that you've been stung by a jellyfish include:

What to do and not to do if you think you've been stung

"Diagnosing jellyfish stings generally doesn't require a visit to a health care provider. If you do go, your provider will likely be able to diagnose your injury by looking at it," reported Mayo Clinic.

Mayo Clinic states that most jellyfish stings, unless severe symptoms are also present, can be treated by:

Carefully plucking visible tentacles from the skin with fine tweezers

Soaking the skin in hot water. Use water that's 110 to 113 F. It should feel hot, not scalding. Keep the affected skin immersed or in a hot shower until the pain eases, which might be 20 to 45 minutes

Apply 0.5% to 1% hydrocortisone cream or ointment twice a day to the affected skin

In addition, there are many widely spread tales of how to "help" someone who's been stung that are actually incorrect.

Mayo Clinic also listed these actions to avoid as they are unhelpful or remain unproved to provide aid.

Scraping out stingers

Rinsing with human urine

Rinsing with cold, fresh water

Applying meat tenderizer

Applying alcohol, ethanol or ammonia

Rubbing with a towel

Applying pressure bandages

Hubble Captures Jellyfish Galaxy JW39

The jellyfish galaxy JW39 hangs serenely in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This galaxy lies over 900 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices and is one of several jellyfish galaxies Hubble has been studying over the past two years.

Despite this jellyfish galaxy's serene appearance, it is adrift in a ferociously hostile environment: a galaxy cluster. Compared to their more isolated counterparts, the galaxies in galaxy clusters are often distorted by the gravitational pull of larger neighbors, which can twist galaxies into a variety of shapes.

If that was not enough, the space between galaxies in a cluster is also pervaded with a searingly hot plasma known as the intracluster medium. While this plasma is extremely tenuous, galaxies moving through it experience it almost like swimmers fighting against a current, and this interaction can strip galaxies of their star-forming gas.

This interaction between the intracluster medium and the galaxies is called ram-pressure stripping and is the process responsible for the trailing tendrils of this jellyfish galaxy. As JW39 moved through the cluster, the pressure of the intracluster medium stripped away gas and dust into long trailing ribbons of star formation that now stretch away from the disk of the galaxy.

Astronomers using Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 studied these trailing tendrils in detail, as they are a particularly extreme environment for star formation. Surprisingly, they found that star formation in the 'tentacles' of jellyfish galaxies was not noticeably different from star formation in the galaxy disk.

Citation: Hubble captures jellyfish galaxy JW39 (2023, May 30) retrieved 31 May 2023 from https://phys.Org/news/2023-05-hubble-captures-jellyfish-galaxy-jw39.Html

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