Welcome to episode sixty one of Get It a Live, a podcast where me
and your host Ashley every other week tells you a new animal tack story.
And I'm miro host Nick, And I got stung by a beam I told
the other day and it really hurt. Do you p on it? I
did not bee on it? No, Ashley, why would I pay on
on a beast thing when he's talking about well, because today we're talking about
an animal where some people get stung and think that they should pee on it.
Perfect transition, Thanks, Nick, I must be bears, right,
Yeah, it's definitely bears. So we have a fantastic guest today. But
before we get to that interview, we're going to do a quick and dirty
overview of the species that we're talking about in general, for stuff that we
didn't cover in the interview, Nick, what are we talking about jellyfish?
So before we get into that interview as well, I should note that during
the interview, during the end, the software that we record on glitched and
you won't hear us saying goodbye to the guest because the software was like,
we stopped recording, so I was panicking, so you won't hear me.
Also, it's just me, not Nick, because Nick had to work and
our guest doctor Rebecca Helm is a very busy person, so we didn't have
a long time to chat. So I tried to ask as many questions as
I could and not have like filler stuff. So we're gonna pop in after
the interview like we normally do, but we will tell you where to find
her on socials. Then you did great, by the way, it was
an awesome interview. Thank you. I tried, and she's obviously great.
She's hilarious. I'm so excited. And I found her, of course from
an episode of Ologies where she was a guest Andology, so I will link
that episode in the description as well. And that episode is longer than ours
is and they talk about like jellyfish biology more than we do, so which
from the interview I have learned jellyfisht biology is quite quite varied. Crazy,
Yeah, it's going on. Yeah, a lot of weird stuff for us
humans. So we're talking about jellyfish. So there are four different types.
There's the box jellyfish, and their shaped like squares and have tentacles on four
corners. They have well developed eyes and are, according to Rebecca pretty clever
and are good at navigating. Box jellyfish have eyes. Yeah, I didn't
know that. I know. There's so many things to go there, like
and even the stuff that you and I are going to talk about in this
intro is not going to cover all of this stuff with jellyfish because we just
yeah, well there's a lot of jellyfish out there, so yeah, so
remember box jellyfish for later. They're important. Also, if I sound gross,
it's because I'm sick, and Nick is also sick, but in a
different way, so apologize. Yeah, no, he's not. Then there's
the under research star jellyfish also known as star zoans, and they sit on
the bottom of the body of water that they're in and they don't sting and
are shaped like wineglasses and have what look like little pom poms at the end
of them. Ooh cool, I've never even heard of these. Yeah,
yeah, honestly saying before, I truly knew like nothing about jellyfish before going
into this interview. So yeah, there's a few things I learned. I'm
excited to get to the outro and talk about some of the stuff I learned
in the interview because there's a bunch of stuff in there. I was like,
ooh, I could know that. So next there's the water jellyfish hydrozoans,
And aren't they all water jellyfish? I mean technically, but these are
called water jellyfish or hydrozoans. Yeah, and they are the most diverse group,
with around two thousand species. But they're all pretty small, clear,
don't sting, And the average person doesn't really know much about them, like
you or I. I mean, we're the average person. We don't know
anything about jellyfish in general, so we know even less about those. But
these are probably like the group that make up most of the jellyfish in the
world. I would guess, yes, yeah, well maybe they're the diverse
for sure. Okay, I got you. Yeah. And then the last
group are the siphozoa, and they are the big charismatic jellyfish that you'll often
see in aquariums. But these ones dousting, so some have long, frilly
tendrils. So what kind of what I think of when I think of like
a classic jellyfish, Like they have like the wavy tentacles, amiss, like
the other stringing tentacles. So that's one group of those, But then the
other half of that group looks like they have cauliflower on the bottom, which
helps them filter feeds. So instead of those long tentacles, it's like cauliflower
on the bottom. Okay, cool. Yeah, And they're around ten thousand
species of jellyfish and around one hundred of those species are dangerous to humans,
and we will get more into that later. Can't wait. There was also
a question that we didn't get to in the interview because, like I said,
we had to I had to go pretty fast so she could get back
to being an awesome jellyfish researcher. So I wanted to answer that question now.
And if you would like to also ask questions for our guests, you
can join us on Patreon, Patreon, slash CATTLEI Podcasts, where you can
find bonus episodes, bonus videos now, and other stuff. We got some
good clips on there already. We have one that I really like. We
got one that really makes me laugh. Yeah, me too. So this
question was posed by Vincent, who asked what is the jellyfish's natural predator?
And according to oceana dot org, among the predators of the jellyfish, the
following have been identified. Ocean sunfish, gray triggerfish, turtles, especially the
leatherback sea turtle, some seabirds, the whale shark, some crabs such as
the arrow and hermit crabs, some whales such as humpbacks, some nidarians such
as an enemies, certain nooda branches which are little small mollusks without shells.
And also some jellyfish eat other jellyfish species and they're known as medusavares. Cool,
yeah, because jellyfish are medusa's owen's, which is dope. And this
is probably a pretty good point to mention. Don't throw your trash in the
fucking ocean because a lot of the plastic bags and stuff that float around getting
this thing for jelly fish and a lot of animals eat that and die.
That's a good point that I didn't even think to mention, So just would
be a good point to throw that in there, you know. Yeah,
perfect care of your trash. Don't throw all your plastic bags and just you
know, normal trash because it will get to the ocean and they will kill
animals. You can recycle a lot of plastic bags at like supermarkets and stuff,
which I learned recently, So perfect. Yeah, So everyone check out
your local supermarket see if you're gonna start recycling those things, because I know
I got a cabinet full of them. So yes, they definitely need to
be better about that too. So of course, the reason that we're talking
about jellyfish today is because they can possibly pose a threat to people, and
we'll get more into that on how they affect humans later in the episode,
like in the interview, but in the interest of time, we're going to
talk about one story today and like one attack story per se. But according
to Live science dot com, there's like no official tally on how many people
die from jellyfish venom each year, but they estimate it to be around one
hundred people. Oh that's that's a good amount. Yeah, it's not insignificant
for sure. And you will likely know if you've been stung, and if
you're stung by jellyfish that has one of the most deadly venoms in the world,
you will likely go into shock before you feel the pain of the sting.
Oh now, and you could within minutes get welts, blisters or a
rash in the area where you were stung, feel pain, and also start
to feel faint. And just so we're clear, getting or going into shock
while you're swimming is a bad thing, right, yep, okay, yeah,
I just want to make sure we were on the same page about that.
Yeah, okay, yeah, that'd be unfortunate. Yeah, I mean,
in general, I don't think it's good for your body to go into
shock. But yeah, as you're in water, which we are not evolved
to exist in. Well yeah, yeah. So let's go over a story
from February of last year, twenty twenty two about a boy in Australia.
Of course it's Australia, Doude. We had that one listener from Australia reach
out to us and they were like, I can't believe that you live around
bears. I'm like, you could go with the water and die at any
moment. Literally everything around you could kill you. Like, yeah, bears
aren't that crazy, especially the ones here. Yeah. To be fair though,
they could be in the water waiting for us. They just are.
Oh and if you if you see a freaking polar bear in the water,
you get the hell away. I saw a freaking video on a on Instagram
recently where like there was a boat like cruising around a polar bear in the
water and the bear was very clear trying to g after the boat, like,
get the fuck away from it. Why would you go? I don't
understand these videos of people in boats that go towards predators in the water.
Oh way cycle paths. Also, Yellowstone just posted a video. Sorry,
this is a tangent. Guys, Well you're here, you know you're getting
this. Yeah, there was a video of people at Yellowstone that just went
viral, literally sprinting, got out of their cars, started sprinting towards a
mother black bear in two cubs and one Yeah, I shared it on our
TikTok get out Alive. One of the people sprinting was carrying their child,
running running towards a predator and that predator's baby. You should not you should
get your parent card revoked for running towards a predator with your fucking child.
And I'm sumthing. The bear is pretty close, Like it's not like it
was like a core mile away right next to like they were so close to
her. Thankfully the bear chose to move away and her cubs moved away.
But like, how stupid could you be? And that is why black bears
are big fat babies. That's why we have this podcast. But please still
don't do that. Yeah, no, absolutely not all right. So fourteen
year old Mark Angelo Ligmaio had recently moved to Australia from the Philippines and on
February twenty sixth, twenty twenty two, Mark and his family were visiting a
beach north of McKay, Australia. Mark was standing in waste high water for
about ten minutes when he suddenly came running back to the beach screaming because he
was wrapped up in two meters of jellyfish tentacles. Oh my god. Yeah,
and for us non metric folks, that is six feet of tentacles.
It's at a lot of feet it is. So lifeguards rushed to his aid,
pulled the tentacles off of him, poured vinegar on him, and began
administering CPR. Mark was rushed to a hospital but unfortunately ended up dying from
his injuries from the venom specifically. And this is also following almost exactly a
year after a seventeen year old boy died from box jellyfish stings as well in
Cape York, Australia, and his death was the first from a jellyfish in
fifteen years in the area and At the time of the seventeen year old's death,
a marine and jellyfish biologist, doctor Lisa Ann Gershwin was furious because she
was like, there are so many ways to protect yourself from jellyfish or to
remove jellyfish from the area. It just is a matter of education and there
is no reason to not implement those things, and like implement these education programs,
especially when you have kids who are dying now twice so they have two
years. They have ways of keeping jellyfish away from the beaches. Yeah,
they can rake the beaches or like put nets up in swimming areas to keep
them out of areas where people say, oh, yeah, I guess that's
yeah. Nets are probably a pretty good idea when you live in Australia.
Yeah, for everything, for everything that exists in the water. Yeah,
all right, And we will use that as our segue to get into our
interview with doctor Rebecca Helm on how we can live safely around jellyfish. Okay,
my name is Rebecca Helm. My pronouns are she her. At the
earliest age, about fifteen years old, I was just obsessed with weird animals,
and jellyfish are about as weird as it gets and in terms of where
I am now, I'm at Georgetown University and I'm mostly working on jelly's at
the surface of the ocean. Very cool. And so I did listen to
your Ologies episode because I love me some Ali Ward and you had mentioned to
her you were talking about your master's work and how you discovered a chemical that
can help jellyfish. I don't remember the exact word for it, but help
them like go into a different life stage. Is that correct? Yeah,
So jellyfish have a couple different stages to their life. They're much more like
frogs and butterflies than they are like humans in the sense that they have intermediate
life cycle stages or larvae. So in butterflies we call those caterpillars, and
in frogs we call those tadpoles. Jellyfish have their own kind of larvae.
We call them polyps, and they look a little bit like teeny tiny sea
anemonies. They stick to anything that's hard on the seafloor, so shells,
rocks, bits of dead coral, docks. So if people have docks on
the ocean, you might have some jellyfish polyps on your dock. And when
the conditions are right, so usually that means sometime in the spring, those
polyps will go through a metamorphic process and produce tiny jellyfish. And so when
I was in grad school, I found that certain molecules will essentially trick the
polyp into thinking that it's the right time kind of any time, which is
really convenient for science because waiting around for polyps to be ready and willing every
year once a year to make tiny jellyfish heads a little bit too long of
a timeline. So this meant we could kind of trick polyps into making jellyfish
whenever we wanted, which was great. Yeah, And why would you besides,
like I guess, having it in a lab setting, why would you
want them to go into like from a polyp to an adult jellyfish? Like,
what's the benefit? Yeah, yeah, it's it's really helpful for us
to understand, you know, basic features about jellyfish biology. We know so
little about the internal workings of jellyfish, especially through their lives, and so
learning about how jellyfish grow, what inhibits or hinders their growth, what spurs
on or improves their growth, all of these things can be answered much more
easily if you have some control over the life cycle, gotcha? Okay?
And also what does a polyp even look like? Because I hadn't even heard
that they were polyps until I heard you talk about them. I don't even
know where I would start to look for them. So they're kind of milky.
They're small, about the size of a bread crumb, kind of milky
looking in color, and they look like a little cnemone. So they have
a body that shaped like a cup with a whirl of tentacles around the lip.
And when they're a polyp, like, what are they eating? How
are they surviving? Just like hanging on to something, they are just hanging
on. They kind of attach on the bottom and chill out kind of sway
in the current. In comparison to jellyfish, they are really boring to watch,
Okay, don't do them a lot, but there their tentacles are just
kind of out there and they catch food passively, so you know, not
like just sitting on the dock of the bay with your fishing pole right waiting
for something to swim by. That's kind of how they do it. Twenty
four seven three sixty five. Nice, that's not a bad would be I
think it looks great and where in the world can we find jellyfish. You
can find jellyfish almost anywhere that there's calm water, So every ocean from the
Antarctic to the Arctic, all all the way down to the bottom of the
seafloor. You could also find jellyfish in lakes, really nice, calm lakes.
Even in the United States, there are at least ten species of freshwater
jellyfish. And then of course we see jellyfish along coasts, but we can
also find them way way out in the open ocean, you know, thousand
of miles from shore. So yeah, it has to be pretty calm.
They don't like really rough waters, no rivers, no really turbulent areas.
They tend to get kind of chewed up by really fast moving currents, and
calm water is, yeah, is what they love, and that's where we
tend to find them. That is so cool. So I guess, like,
because I live near lakes, I don't live necessarily near the ocean,
and I've never thought about jellyfish being in them. So, like, does
a lake jellyfish look similar to an ocean I mean, there's different species.
I'm sure they all look different, but like, do they have similar morphology
from freshwater to salt water species they do. Yeah, so lake jellyfish in
the United States. It's kind of a weird story. They were introduced from
China a while ago, over one hundred years ago now, I think just
about and have sort of been spreading around to different lakes as polyps. So
polyops will stick to anything, including like vegetation that might get stuck on bird
feet or boats or things like that, and so as birds and boaters moved
between lakes, the polyps move between lakes and they make jellyfish. They're about
the size of the nickel when they're fully grown, so they're not super big,
and they're kind of clear, a little bit whitish, but they move
just like a little jellyfish, and you know, they're not particularly dangerous.
I've handled them. I didn't feel a sting. Some people say they feel
a little inch or a little pickle. But yeah, they're actually really beautiful,
and unfortunately they're now threatened and endangered in their native habitat in China because
the lakes they used to live in China are being heavily modified by human industries.
So they're something of a refuge species, if you will. In the
United States. They're invasive, not native, but it's not really clear if
we should try to get rid of them because they might not really have other
places to go. Yeah, I was gonna ask that, like if they're
considered invasive or are they like having any negative effects on other native species.
Well, I'm sure they're changing lake ecology in some ways. Right, anytime
you add a new species to an ecosystem, there's some shift, even if
it's a small shift. But the question, the sort of broader question,
is well, what does that shift mean for us and for the lakes that
we love so much? Right? Are they going to damage the ecosystem or
change the ecosystem in a way that we don't like? And so far,
I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that's the case, that they're you know,
really changing lakes. And suddenly this lake is totally different because that's jellyfish
in it. You know, in general, we see them blooming in the
late summer, so actually this started. Jellyfish season is around August and September,
perfect into the fall. Yeah, and uh, and they do eat,
you know, the things that are in the lake. But in terms
of whether or not they have an impact, I think that's kind of going
to depend on every lake, right, Yeah, it may not be too
bad. So I hope they're not that, but I'm biased. Yeah,
absolutely, but it makes more interesting research for you, So like our is
this your busy season because they are blooming? Well, I don't really study
lake jellyfish. I tried to when I was in grad school. So their
full complicated scientific name is crass but a custos so were I a real mouthful?
Not my favorite freshwater jellyfish much easier to say. And they were found
in Walden Pod like the Rose Famous pond when I was in graduate school,
and so I went and I collected some and I brought them back to the
lab and I wanted to study them. And in order to study them,
I needed to I needed to have polyps. YEP, jellyfish aren't great to
keep in the lab for long periods of time. They're really fragile. Palms
are like the weather resistant, stress resistant super zen stage that you can keep
in the lab and still have a normal life and go on vacations and things
like that. And of the three hundred jellyfish that we collected from Walden Pond,
every single one was female. So we couldn't close the life cycle,
we couldn't get little baby polyps from the jellyfish. It just totally crashed.
A burn didn't work, and then all the jellyfish went away for that year
and I had to find something else to do. So, oh my god.
Yeah, maybe one day I'll start studying freshwater jellyfish again. But right
now they're yeah, yeah, difficult, beautiful, challenging, yes, topic
wow. So I guess that also begs the question like how do jellyfish mate,
Like, can they asexually reproduce or does it have to be like a
male and a female sperm egg situation? Every kind of way, every way
you can think to do it, they sort of do it, so they
can asexually reproduce, And there are definitely a lot of species that kind of
go that route and just bud tiny jellyfish off their big adult jellyfish body.
They can also go through this sort of elaborate little jellyfish mating dance where the
females will catch males in her technacles and then she'll reel them all in and
kind of compare them and then decide which ones she likes best. And all
wite with that one, Yeah, and then most commonly they just sort of
hit eggs and sperm into the water, just sort of unit like they just
yeah, very unceremoniously kind of dump eggs or sperm into the water and then
they're on their own, right, and it's like figure it out, eggs
and sperm that go find each other and that's how you get new jellies.
That is so cool, what like a feminist icon to just have jellyfish really
and men and be like not that one disgusting. Yeah, yeah, they're
very cool. You know, a lot of people underestimate jellies because they don't
really have the same kind of nervous system that we have. They don't have
brains in the way we like to think of brains, but they do have
some pretty cool behaviors and they do some really neat things with what they got.
So yeah, I'm all for the feminist jellies, yes, Yeah,
And I guess now is a good time for this question that one of our
patrons had, which I absolutely loved and never even thought of. So our
patron, Carrie wanted to know can jellyfish feel emotions like humans do? That
is such a philosophically challenging question. Yes answer. And it's so funny that
she asked that because I lived at a zun center before I went to grad
school. So I was like, do I want to become like a Buddhist
nun or do I want to be scientist? I chose. I chose scientists.
But I was also having this like kind of doubt question of like can
jellyfish feel pain? And I asked a zen Buddhist master and they were like,
I don't know. You're the one that studies that, Like why are
you asking me? So you know, we can't really ever know, right,
even among like other fellow human beings, like exactly what someone is feeling,
and if you know your version of sadness is exactly the same as you
experience it on the inside, is like my version of sadness, right,
And and in fact, they've done really cool brain studies that show that,
yeah, every person that feels sadness like in their brain something kind of different
happens compared to every other person. So there's not like one brain pattern that's
like this is everybody on sadness, right, or kind of doing it a
little differently and have kind of different ways to interpret what our bodies are feeling
and so so then you kind of think about, wow, okay, already
this is really complicated for people. What about something that has eight mini brains
around a central body and know one's central brain, how do they feel and
see and receive the world? And I guess you know, what I can't
say is that they do seem to have a versive behavior. So if you
poke them those from away, they do seem to be excited or attracted to
certain things and demonstrate that through their behavior. So some jellyfish really like being
in the sun and they will swim towards the light, right, And so
it's definitely clear they have preferences, right and and sort of in a weird
roundabout way, they have opinions about stuff. But whether you know they can
feel like angry or mad or rest or is essential dread, doesn't, you
know, doesn't seem like something that we can really sort of figure out.
I suspect that the way jellyfish preceides the world is is totally beautiful and probably
similar in some ways and probably in other ways totally unique and kind of like
trying to imagine a new prime color, right boy, Yeah, yeah,
Like we sort of know in theories that other species can see colors that we
can't see. But like what you can't even really imagine what that would look
like because we can't see it. Yeah, exactly. The same is true
with you know how jellyfish feel about the world. Yeah, oh, but
that's so cool. That could be a whole rabbit hole we could go down
forever like it is. You know how other animals see the world is like
a whole field in and of itself. Yeah, oh so good. So
patron Robin asked how long did jellyfish live for, either in wild or in
captivity? Okay, I'm gonna ask answer this like simple, and then I'm
gonna get really complicated, perfect simple, like six months okay fish in the
wild, and then you can add a couple of years in captivity. So
like, if you are really coddling your jellyfish, they will live for like
three or four years. They do pretty well. Okay, medium level,
complicated answer. Polyps can live for like one hundred years at least. Okay,
Yeah, and they're churning out new jellyfish every year. And the polyp
to jellyfish metamorphosis is a little different than the caterpillar to butterfly metamorphosis. They
don't fully metamorphosed. They leave a little bit behind. So it would be
like if a caterpillar. Caterpillar left it's like back two legs and then like
regrew into a new tiny cat. Wow. Yeah, they kind of chunk
themselves up when they go through metamorphosis, and so you can track like this
is the same pollup that I had last year the year before, even if
they are going through this process of making jellyfish. Wow. And so yeah,
we know they can live for a really long time. And then if
you really want to get complicated and confused some jellyfish, if you sort of
poke them, stab them, if they get too hot, they get too
cold, they essentially curl into a little ball and kind of sink to the
sea floor. It's a very relatable thing really. Yeah. I also curl
into a little ball people are mean to me U and then they just grow
into a polyp again. So they yeah, they so they go backwards.
So it's sort of like, you know, I turn into a bit of
like a metaphorical baby when people are mean to be literally turn back into babies.
Wow. And we don't know if that's something they can do like forever
or if eventually you do it enough, you know, in the universe kind
of like you're like, stop it, You're done. Yeah, you don't
have to turn back into a baby anymore. Yeah, eating is sort of
an inevitable thing. Even if you can turn into a baby, you're still
like an older baby than you were the first time. Yeah, baby,
So we don't really know. We don't really know how many times they can
do that. But that complicates things even further because then we have poly ups
and it's like, well, are these like og polyps it came from an
egg and a sperm, or these like your third time being a polyp?
Polyps? Oh, that's so cool. Also, how cool that, like
we don't know these things and there's so much room for research to be done
on it. That's so it's so amazing. Like jellyfish is the ultimate job
security because you're never going to answer, like even the simple questions are still
up for to be a discussion. Yeah, Like that was one of the
simplest questions. I asked you how old are they? And you're like,
yeah, who knows? Who knows? Really? Yeah? So cool.
So I guess in a similar vein patron Angela ask do jellyfish migrate or hibernate,
and if they do those things, do they tend to stay in groups
or in general, I guess do they stay in groups? Yes, So
some jellyfish do seem to like hang out together. Sometimes that's because we think
the currents just kind of swirl them all together and they just kind of,
you know, wind up in the same place. But some jellyfish seem to
like try to really hang out with each other. So there's these jellyfish in
fjords really deep down that will hold tentacles, so they'll kind of like hold
on to each other as they're swimming through the water. Yeah, we don't
know why. It's like they're they're deep down, it's cold water. It's
really hard to study them. But you can see them on the sonar and
they'll just be like two little little jellyfish kind of traveling together. And if
you send a camera down, sure enough they're like they got their little tentacles
wrapped around each other. Wow. So that's really cool a mystery. Some
jellyfish do migrate, and so one great example would be the jellyfish in the
Jellyfish Lakes in Palau. So there are these beautiful round, kind of tennis
ball shaped and sized golden jellyfish, and they have algae that they grow in
their body, kind of like a little garden that you can move around.
So they've got this garden in their body, and the whole lake's worth of
jellyfish will follow the sun throughout the day, so you know, the sun
rises in the east, and they'll be at the westernmost part of the lake
kind of like ready and weeding to catch those first waves rays of light.
And then as the sun moves across the sky, they'll sort of move across
the lake to get the best sunlight for their walk and their algae. Yeah,
so it's pretty cool, and they, you know, will go up
or down depending on how strong the sun is that day. So if it's
cloudy, they might go a little bit high up. If it's really really
bright, they might go a little deeper down to protect at algae from getting
like a sort of like an algae sunburn essentially. And you know, it
turns out that a lot of jellyfish seem to do this, so even ocean
jellyfish will exhibit this migratory behavior across bays during the day, and some jellyfish
also show really strong day night patterns. So there's a beautiful jellyfish called the
cigar jellyfish, and it's named that because it's nocturnal and during the day it
rolls into a little taco that kind of looks like a cigar as it's rolling
around on the seafloor and will just sort of rest for the day and then
kind of get active at night and swim around. Wow, oh my god,
they're so cool. I could talk to you forever about them. And
like, I'm sure different species in different places do so many different things and
less opportunities. There are thousands of species, so oh my gosh, yeah,
no, wonder you're so busy all the time. It's fun. It's
so fun, but it is it. It's and it's like hard to keep
track, like, oh, wait, which one's doing who's doing that?
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, who's a cigar today? Yeah for
sure? Right, yeah, so I guess a similar question, patron Down
asked what is the difference between a jellyfish and a Portuguese man a war and
similarly, Angela asked, are there other species that share similar characteristics to jellyfish
that are not jellyfish? I don't know. What a Portuguese man of war
is. So I have no idea if that is even a jellyfish, but
okay, yeah, well I'll start big and zoom in. So jellies is
what scientists call literally anything in the ocean that has the texture of jello.
Awesome, And so you can be a fish and if you have that gelatinous
texture, then you are a jelly. If you are another kind of invertebrates,
say a worm, and you're really gelatinous, then you're a jelly.
So if we use the term jelly like really broadly to refer to anything that's
kind of goofy and jelloesque, and there are lots of jellies. So comb
jellies is a great example. They are not jellyfish. They are a totally
separate kind of animal, but they look a lot like jellyfish. They have
that same gelatinous gooby body, and they're a great example of something that's not
a jellyfish but has the jellyfish distalt to it. Right gosh, I mean,
even babyfish will often resemble jellyfish in the open ocean. I think is
probably some kind of strategy. And so that's kind of the broader overarching thing
of like what is a jellyfish? In this case, when we say jelly
fish, we're talking just about one particular group of animals, anyone that looks
like a little bell or a wineglass, right, that sort of typical jellyfish
shape is specific to jellyfish. Portuguese man o war are jellies. They're certainly
very goofy, certainly very stingy, but they're actually more similar to polyps.
So they are like polyps that float on the surface of the ocean, like
really big blue, very very painful polyps. Oh, and they have a
jelly like part of their life cycle that we really don't know anything about.
So they're very unusual weirdos that aren't technically jellyfish, but would we would call
them jellies and they would be scientifically considered like a kind of polyp. Okay,
wow, I feel like that raises more questions than answers. That's so
cool. Oh yeah, so Portuguese man o war. They're in a group
of animals called siphonophores. And man, if you want to get super confused,
that is a rabbit hole to go down, because even really simple questions
like what is an individual, right, become really muddy. So it's a
really cool group of animals, but definitely like a whole other thing. Yeah,
so you're saying the Portuguese man of war is painful, So like do
they sting people or hurt people in some way? They every jelly, whether
it's a jellyfish or a Portuguese man o war, it's always like an accident.
Nothing is trying to hurt people. In most cases, of the thirty
odd jellies that sting humans, they all seem to have in common that they
eat fish, like their primary prey is fish, and for all the rest
of the thousands of jellies they're mostly eating like little crabs or crustaceans. But
fish and humans have a lot more in common than humans and crustaceans. Yeah,
and so the kinds of venom that work on crustaceans, yeah, like
they don't really work on us super well. Right, That's why we can
use insecticides in our garden and not like immediately keel over and tye ourselves,
right, because it's really different biology. But you know, we can't eat
rat poison because that is really similar to our biology. And likewise, if
something poisons fish, it probably poisons people, and so Portuguese man O war
they have a horrible, super painful sting, but it's always like an accidental
encounter. It's definitely not something that they ever, you know, intend to
use on like weird hairless land apes, right, And it really sucks for
them too, Like we had jellyfish in the lab and when they lost tentacles,
they would shrink like they would actually starve because they fish with those things.
That's their only way to catch food. And when they don't have them
anymore, it makes their lives really uncomfortable too. So yeah, they're really
really painful. But I try to remember when I'm stung and it's like,
okay, it's not personal. Yeah, And I guess, I guess I
don't understand the mechanism of them stinging people. So is it like there's venom
on the tentacles or they have to like physically like inject you with something.
Is it just upon touching them. It's kind of all of the above.
So they have specialized cells and within those cells are little pockets of venom that
they sort of keep in these special cellular compartments. And each cellular compartment has
a little needle associated with it that can fire out to shoot the venom into
your body when you brush against it. And they also have a little trigger
or like a little you know, lever on the top of the cell that
will essentially release the harpoon needle and the venom into your skin. So when
you brush against them, if you fire those little trigger, then the harpoon
will shoot into you and it'll inject all the venom that's in that little compartment
into your skin. So okay, yeah, geez. So would that,
in your opinion, be like the most common conflict that people tend to have
with jellyfishes, Like jellyfish ven I'm being injected into people and that's how people
in them don't mesh. Yeah, mostly that. Yeah, I would say
the vast majority of people who have jellyfish stories to tell me are telling me
stories about these, you know, unfortunate confusions that they have with jellyfish.
Right where they get stung by jellyfish. It really really hurts, and you
know, it can be really a bummer day at the beach. Yeah.
Some jellies get huge and can create issues for fissures that have big nets because
they will weigh like as much as a washing machine, and so trying to
pull you know, a hundred jellyfish up that are the size and weight of
a washing machine in your net can tip over boats. That can be an
issue. But that's definitely not something that anyone has told me. You know,
Like if I ever meet someone that says, oh yeah, jellyfish,
they really stink. They sunk my boat, I'll be like, okay,
what I say? More right now, help me everything? Yeah exactly.
Wow, And I guess going off that too, patron Shanda ask do all
jellyfish sting? All jellyfish stings something, but only a handful sting people,
like maybe a couple dozen? Oh wow, okay, yeah, So all
jellyfish use this kind of like harpoon sell to catch their food, but most
of the harpoons that they use don't work on us. So for most species,
they have harpoons that are designed to eat like little shrimp for example,
and those just don't penetrate the human skin, so or they might not even
be triggered by human skin, right, the trigger might not even work when
it touches our skin. So it's just the ones that really seem to like
fish that create some problems of mistaken identity for us. Yeah, and the
jellyfish that could sting us in a way that we would like feel it and
be sad about it. Is it ever enough to kill a person or is
it just leave you like kind of a burn situation. Well, yeah,
there are a couple species where it can be deadly and they mostly live in
Australia and of course, of course also you know, Philippines, Indonesia.
It's not uncommon for certain species of box jellyfish to be oh really dangerous and
there are lots of box jellyfish and only a small number are are life threatening.
But yeah, if you get stuck by one of those, you definitely
need medical attention immediately. It's kind of a volume thing though, you know,
certainly anyone can die from exposure to anything. And there are people that
are allergic to jellyfish, and there are a lot of people that allergic to
jellyfish that don't know they're allergic to jellyfish. So if you're allergic, it
doesn't really matter how much you get stung, because you're gonna have an allergic
reaction and it's probably gonna be pretty rough. If you're not allergic to jellyfish
and you get stung by one of these really dangerous ones, you have to
be stung a lot. It depends on the species. So for Portuguese man
o war, I mean very small humans who get stung by very big Portuguese
man o war that can actually be really dangerous for box jellyfish. Even if
you are a big human and you get stung by a box jellyfish, that
can be very dangerous. Generally, anytime anyone is stung by a jellyfish,
I'm like, go to the lifeguard, you know, because the lifeguard knows
what's out there. They know you know how to treat the local jellyfish.
And if there's no lifeguard, I would say, yeah, call a doctor.
I'm not a medical professional, so I'm not given medical advice, but
you know me personally, that's what I do. Yeah, for sure.
And this might be like a really basic question and the answer might just be
like swim away, But like, if you're in the ocean, how can
you avoid being stung by a jellyfish? So I can only answer for what
I've done, which has mixed success. So some jellyfish are real ough,
real pains in the butt when it comes to they'll just sting you instantly,
like you look at them wrong and they'll sting you so upside down jellyfish in
the Florida Keys, you don't even need to touch them, and they'll release
these bombs of snot that have stinging cells in them, and suddenly, like
all the water around you will become stingy like you just them yeah, slightly
mad, So they would be like the ultimate grumpy jellyfish. Like, I
don't even swim in the water with those guys. If there's any any rough
water at all, or if I'm gonna be doing like any kicking super herd
or anything, I'm like, no way, those guys are super super mean.
But then other jellyfish, you know, as long as you like don't
touch them, yeah they're okay. Now. The strick, of course,
is that their tentacles are like the width of a human hair, so you
can't always see when you're about to run into this whole massive tentacles. But
generally I just try to steer it clear, kind of figure out the direction
that the water flow is moving in, you know, because usually they swim
against the current, so they'll be swimming kind of into the flow of water,
and I assume all of the all of the stingy bits are behind them.
But gotcha, Okay, there's rarely one jellyfish, you know, so
I may be swimming up stream of one and downstream of another. So yeah,
you just kind of have to keep your eyes peeled and be ready to
bail if you start getting stuck. Yeah, and I'm assuming this is a
myth, but I have to ask we should not pee on jellyfish stings,
right, You must get asked this all the time. Well, like most
really successful pervasive urban legends, there's like a kernel of truth to it.
So no, I don't pee on jellyfish stings. There are a lot of
reasons why you don't want to add urine to any wound, but the part
that seems to be more true than not is that heat can really help treat
jellyfish stings, and pee coming out of people is like ninety eight degrees,
so it's on the warm side and that can potentially sue the sting a little
bit. But I do not recommend peeing. Instead, you can get like
hot packs that they use in really cold states in the winter. They're like
these little chemical packs and you expose them to air and they start to warm
up. You can shove them in your boots and mittens when it's really chilly
outside, but I always keep them in my sort of jellyfish emergency kit.
And my procedure is, okay, i've gotten stum. First, I have
to make sure there's no tentacle left on me, because it'll continue stinging long
after it's dead. I mean, they can sting for a very long time.
So remove any tentacle, either with some sand, just kind of brushing
it off with sand, or you can use like a really hard surface like
a credit card to scrape off any tentacle. And then I'll usually also scrape
off the area once the tentacle has been removed, because those stinging cells can
still be attached. And then there are a variety of products that you can
apply. Sting No More is a great one that you can apply that'll help
neutralize the venom and destroy the cells on your skin. Vinegar can also break
up those cells, Meat tenderizer can break up those cells. But there's already
a lot of venom inside you, and in order to kind of stop the
venom that's in your body from continuing to break down your cells and hurt you,
heat can be used to denature the venom. It's essentially like cooking it.
So you don't want anything too hot, you don't want to burn yourself.
But if you add enough heat, like a like a warm bath,
like just on the edge of maybe being a little too hot but comfortable,
you know, add heat that'll essentially cook the venom in your body. Jellyfish,
of course, are at a much colder temperature than we are, so
the venom can be cooked in a much lower temperature and that will really help.
So kind of a combination of all of those things is a pretty good
heat treatment, and then are a pretty good general treatment. And then if
you have anything like neosporin or any other kind of antibiotic, I generally try
to apply that because your skin has been broken by those harpoons and other things
like bacteria in the ocean, and there are lots of bacteria in the ocean
can get in and give you like a secondary infection. Oh perfect, great,
Now, I know I have so many questions. But okay, patron
down asked, is there any safe way to put them back in the water
when they're stranded? So obviously we just learned do not touch them, but
is there anything do to help them if they're struggling. That's very sweet and
thoughtful, and I always try. Usually by the time they've washed ashore,
they're like kind of at the end of their most bad day, right,
Jellies don't do too well out of the water for too long. But if
you want to try to put them back, I would first make sure that
any jelly that you're thinking about putting back into the water isn't like the jelly
that can kill you. And also definitely I don't recommend you know, getting
close with your hands, but I will have like a little shovel, like
one of those little toy shovels that you can use to make saying castles,
and I'll just kind of like flip them back right, So you just kind
of get a little leverage by going underneath them in the sand and then you
just kind of like bop them. You know. Yeah, if they're freshly
washed up, that actually might save them. Usually by the time you see
them, they're kind of donzo. Yeah, like even if you pop them
back out, they're just gonna restrand. But you know, if they're newly
stranded, uh, and you want to help them and safe to do so,
yeah, you can use a little shovel to kind of pop up back.
So, like I mentioned the intro, doctor Helm was on an episode
of Ologies, and in that episode she mentioned something that we didn't get to
talk about in our interview but I thought was really interesting and would probably apply
to the most amount of people. Tim me with it. And I don't
think you know this either, probably not. I don't know a lot facts.
She said that sometimes when you get swimmers itch, what's making you itch
is a bunch of baby jellyfish trapped between your swim suit and your skin.
No shit, yeah, oh let's go so cool. I didn't know that.
I know it's so cool but also so horrifying because you've got like a
bunch of baby jellies being smushed against your body. I really like jellyfish,
Like I want to go swimming with jellyfish one day. Like I know they
have like all those like ponds and stuff where it's like filled with the big,
beautiful, like classic looking jellyfish. I would love to go do that
one day. I think they're great. I love them. I think they're
beautiful, cool animals. Cool. Yeah, well, next time you get
swimmers, you're swimming with them. Yes, you can't wait. Yes,
they found me. Nick. What was the thing that you learned that you
liked the most? Oh, I liked the most. I didn't realize how
like diverse they were, Like so the jellies being like a group of animals
and not just jellyfish, Like I didn't know that there were other types of
fish that were kind of like jelly masses like that. I assume they were
all jellyfish. Portuguese man of war. I had no idea what jellyfish.
Always assumed they were. I didn't even know what those were. Oh my
god. There's so there's crazy stories like so there's a guy who was trying
to swim across the Atlantic Ocean, I think one day or at one point
he was Yeah, he was trying to swim across the Stantic Ocean and he
swam through like a twenty foot long Portuguese man of war and started going to
shock and the middle of the ocean. Wow. Yeah, no, yeah,
no, they are a problem. Like there's a lot of stories like
that. I like, extreme athletes doing these swims across the English Channel or
like across the Atlantic Ocean and they get pretty fucked up. Yeah. Wow,
they're they're scary jelly fisher literally fucking everywhere. I didn't know that the
freshwater ones came from China, some of them, some of them. Yeah,
but just like what the hell, Like this is nuts. Yeah,
I like them, I know. And if you listen to the Ologies episode,
some of the things I learned there, I was so shocked. And
the fact that they could reproduce by just like, oh, yeah, that's
it. So we just had like our cloning and the Extinction Plonus episode.
Would that be like a form of cloning as much as asexual reproduction is?
Yeah, I guess yeah, abusing the same organism, right, Yeah,
yeah, I don't know. It is wild. So, like we talked
about a little bit in the interview box, jellyfish are the most dangerous jellyfish
that we should be worried about. Yeah, And just so we can all
get a better perspective on how dangerous they are. If the total estimated length
of the welts on your body is over seven hundred millimeters, you will quickly
fall unconscious, culminating in a death between fifteen to twenty minutes after you've been
stung. Wow, Like it is fast. If it is that long.
So the Australian box jellyfish has been responsible for over seventy fatal stings or envenomings
since eighteen eighty three. I love that word. We're gonna use it more
often. So they are the most deadly bye by far ever soon of the
jellyfish. Yeah yeah, well it's also the most toxic venom in the world.
Oh yeah, no, it's it's insane. So cube zoans, which
is what the box jellyfish are, include several species of four tentacled box jellyfish
that can also cause I'm probably gonna butcher this pronunciation, but Eruganji syndrome,
which is characterized it's literally a syndrome from being stung by a jellyfish. It's
characterized by severe pain, muscle cramping, hypertension, and potentially life threatening cardiac
complications. Oh man, Yeah, and what I gleamed from reading about what
another jellyfish biologist said, the jellyfish venom stops your heart. So doing CPR
like isn't really helpful. And that's why, like at the beginning of the
episode, I was saying, you know, shoot, that jellyfish biologist was
talking about prevention, because when it does sting you. There's really nothing or
not a lot that can be done to help your heart because it's just like
nothing's coming in or going out. Now, apply heat the biggest thing,
like just just to get the venom out of you. Yeah. According to
dermnetenz dot org, which is like a government website, box jellyfish are most
commonly present in tropical Australian waters from November to April each year, with eight
percent of stings occurring outside this period, so a huge vast majority occurs within
these few months. Yeah. Stings most commonly occur in adult men in water
less than one hundred millimeters deep, and about thirty seven percent of US aralion
box jellyfish stings occur in children. Stings most often occurrent people entering the water
between three and six pm with an outbound tide and rain and strong winds but
not cloudy weather are a deterrent to the jellyfish. Interesting, Yeah, which
we kind of talk about in the interview, like, you know, they
can only control their e motions so much. So, Yeah, the ocean
currents have so much to do with it. Like, I'm sure though,
those months when the attacks are highest is probably when the ocean currents are bringing
them closest to the shore. Yeah, or they're like doing some sort of
migrations or something. I don't know. Yeah, I mean whatever they can
do, it's you know, yea with their limited movement. Very true.
Yeah. So something I also wanted to mention is because you were saying,
like you're all jazzed up about jellyfish. So if you are someone who wants
to contribute to jellyfish science, you can do so at jellywatch dot org,
which I will linkit the episode description, or I'm naturalist dot com, which
are two community science sites where your observations of certain jellyfish species can help science.
Is like doctor Rebecca Helm in their research. I have I Naturalists on
my phone and I you said fairly often like I like it me too,
Yeah, even just like at the seek app. Right is it the seak
app? I have no idea. Yeah, I think it's seeked by I
naturalists. Like you take a picture of something and it kind of tells you,
like the species, and everything gives you a bunch of info. Want.
Oh yeah you told me about that app. Yeah it's really cool.
Yeah, I like it. Yeah, So I use I naturalists like as
a way to remember where I've seen certain species, so if I want to
go find them again. But I've also had like actual biologists reach out to
me through I naturalists and be like, hey, can I use your observation
as like a point in my data set or whatever? Really like it?
Yeah, so it really like it's actually helpful to scientists. So if you
want to contribute and also like learn more about jellyfish and how to identify them,
those are two good ways. Awesome, Yeah, that sounds really cool,
And you can find Rebecca at jellyfish biologists dot com or follow her on
what's formally known as Twitter at Rebecca our Helm and of course I will link
those in the episode description. Perfect Nick, anything else about jellies you want
to touch on, Uh? Yeah, I mean she mentioned that not all
of them are super deadly when they sting, but she did mention that people
can be allergic and don't know about it. So if you think you've been
stung by jellyfish and you are knowledgeable enough to know what kind it is,
you know it's not a box livefish, still get out of the water immediately,
go swim towards a boat, towards sure anything as soon as you can,
because you could go into some kind of shock very quickly from the allergic
reaction. So take care of yourself. Let someone know that you got stung.
Go talk to a left guard or captain of a boat or something,
someone that actually knows what they're doing. Don't just pee on it. Yeah,
I mean put some heats on it. Maybe not pee, but heat
if possible. Perfect. Well, thank you all so much for listening to
episode sixty one of Get It Alive. You can check out the episode description
for links that I talked about in this episode, and you can check out
our website get alli podcast dot com, where you can find our merch and
other fun stuff. Thank you to everyone who's ordered orc Emerch. We appreciate
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Follow us on Facebook at get a Live Podcast, on Instagram at get
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I mean we just be posing clips and you know, probably you know,
the full interviews if we ever get the full video thing going, you
know. Yeah, we do have a bonus video interview that's gonna go live
next month, so I can't wait for that. That's good. Or wait,
no, the month that this comes out September. So wow, that'll
be out September. In the future, Yeah, hopeful it comes out.
Oh wow, time flies. Yeah. Thank you to my good friend and
second grade husband, Josh Walls from making our intro music, and thank you
to our our producer, Jesse Walsh for everything else. Thanks Jesse. Peace.