Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel Von here. If sharks can have
Speaker 1: a week all their own, why not jellyfish? Is it
Speaker 1: because jellyfish don't have a menacing maw or a fear
Speaker 1: inducing dorsal fin? Is it because no one's made a
Speaker 1: thrilling movie where jellyfish terrorized beach goers? Or is it
Speaker 1: because jellyfish look like squished gummy bears with spaghetti strands
Speaker 1: for tentacles. Whatever the reason, as we have discussed on
Speaker 1: the show before, there's a type of jellyfish that's more
Speaker 1: menacing than the most threatening shark. They're a number of
Speaker 1: species in the biological class Kubazolla, but are more commonly
Speaker 1: referred to as box jellyfish. Unlike they're merely annoying lightly
Speaker 1: stinging cousins, the box jellyfish has a powerful venom how powerful.
Speaker 1: One type of boxy, the Australian box jellyfish, is so
Speaker 1: poisonous that if one of its six foot that's nearly
Speaker 1: two meter long tentacles touches you, it's possible you might
Speaker 1: die before you reach the shore. It's considered the most
Speaker 1: venomous marine animal on the planet, which is impressive because
Speaker 1: lots of marine life is not messing around. Take for example,
Speaker 1: another box jellyfish with scientific name Karakea Barnessi. It's Lilliputian
Speaker 1: by comparison, usually under an inch long or about twenty
Speaker 1: five millimeters, but their sting can cause severe pain, headaches, nausea,
Speaker 1: and anxiety that can last for days and require hospitalization.
Speaker 1: A box jellyfish generally live in their own neighborhoods in
Speaker 1: the Indo Pacific Ocean and in the waters off of
Speaker 1: northern Australia, though they also inhabit the waters around Hawaii
Speaker 1: and off the Gulf Coast and East Coast of the
Speaker 1: United States. Only a handful of species can be found
Speaker 1: in all three oceans. Also known as sea wasps and
Speaker 1: marine stingers, A box jellyfish, a class that includes some
Speaker 1: fifty described species, can have up to fifteen tentacles with
Speaker 1: about five thousand stinging cells known as nidocysts. Each of
Speaker 1: those cells contains a tiny capsule that can fire microscopic
Speaker 1: stingers into its prey at more than thirty five miles
Speaker 1: or sixty kilometers per hour, releasing a toxin that can
Speaker 1: cause a rapid spike in blood pressure, which causes the
Speaker 1: heart to seize up and kills the victim. Although no
Speaker 1: one has kept an official fatality record. For example, in
Speaker 1: the Philippines alone, between twenty and forty people die each
Speaker 1: year from box jellyfish stings. Experts say the mortality rate
Speaker 1: around the world is higher than what's reported because doctors
Speaker 1: often misdiagnosed the symptoms or simply get the cause of
Speaker 1: death wrong. Well, what is known is just forty three
Speaker 1: species of box jellyfish together cause more deaths and injuries
Speaker 1: than all sharks, stingrays, and sea snakes combined. You'd have
Speaker 1: better odds of surviving if bitten by a black widow.
Speaker 1: Box jellyfish are curious breed. For one thing, they have
Speaker 1: two dozen eyes, most of which have lenses, corneas, and irises.
Speaker 1: In other words, they can see pretty well, whereas the
Speaker 1: anatomy of a regular jellyfish only allows them to distinguish
Speaker 1: light from dark. Box jellyfish also have a more advanced
Speaker 1: nervous system than their cousins, allowing them to quickly avoid
Speaker 1: and engage objects, and, unlike other species of jellyfish that
Speaker 1: wait for their meals, boxes swim around and actively hunt
Speaker 1: their prey. They propelled through the water by opening and
Speaker 1: shutting their bell shaped heads like an umbrella in a rainstorm,
Speaker 1: and can travel. It speeds around four miles an hour
Speaker 1: that's about six and a half kilometers per hour. For
Speaker 1: the article this episode is based on How's to Forks
Speaker 1: spoke with Dr Angel Nagahara, a marine biologist at the
Speaker 1: University of Hawaii at Manoa and the world's foremost expert
Speaker 1: on box jellyfish. She explains that the box jellyfish does
Speaker 1: not release venom like a rattlesnake would. Instead, one of
Speaker 1: box stings release is a digestive cocktail that helps the
Speaker 1: creature catch and digest its meals. In humans, however, she
Speaker 1: said that that digestive cocktail acts like a quote molecular buckshot,
Speaker 1: causing holes in all of our cells. A person's heart
Speaker 1: can stop and as little as five minutes. So what
Speaker 1: should you do if you are stung by a box jellyfish?
Speaker 1: The Nakahara has been stung several times by boxes and survived,
Speaker 1: and she studied the most common remedies, such as removing tentacles,
Speaker 1: rinsing the bite with vinegar, or applying ice. She and
Speaker 1: her colleagues found that those and other common remedies made
Speaker 1: the sting even worse. She said that the best way
Speaker 1: to treat a box jelly sting is to seek immediant
Speaker 1: emergency assistance. She also helped develop a venom inhibitor cream that,
Speaker 1: if available, can be applied to the wound. Bus jellyfish
Speaker 1: are among the oldest animals on the planet, dating back
Speaker 1: at least six hundred million years, having survived several mass extinctions.
Speaker 1: Their numbers, as that of all jellyfish are g wing
Speaker 1: exacerbated by warming oceans and oxygen depleting fertilizers that eventually
Speaker 1: find their way into the water, which in the end
Speaker 1: is actually bad for their environments. In Agihara said, we're
Speaker 1: a greater threat to them than they are to us.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article box jellyfish World's
Speaker 1: most venomous sea creature on house to forks dot com,
Speaker 1: written by John Paritano. Brain Stuff is production of by
Speaker 1: Heart Radio in partnership with house to forks dot com,
Speaker 1: and it's produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,