Florida jellyfish « Blog The Beach

Posts Tagged ‘Florida jellyfish’

Jellyfish Sting Protection Products I Like

Saturday, January 3rd, 2009

Jellyfish Sting Protection Products from David McRee on Vimeo.

I this video I tell you about two products that may be useful in protecting you and your family from jellyfish stings. Of course, the best way to protect against stings is to keep your eyes open and look for jellyfish. If you see a bunch of them washing up on the beach, then don’t go into the water. Also, check the warning flags at your beach’s lifeguard station. If a purple flag is flying, ask the lifeguard why.

SafeSea is a product you can use to help prevent jellyfish and sea lice from stinging. Stingmate is a product you use immediately after being stung.

I don’t make any assurances or guarantees as to the effectiveness of either product, so use common sense. I do not manufacture or sell the product, nor do I earn a commission from any sales. I have no financial interest in the products.

However, I do own and use both products. I had intended to review these products last summer, but I was just too busy. So here they are.

Tags: Florida jellyfish, jellyfish protection, jellyfish sting, safesea, stingmate
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Jellyfish Invasion Report by NSF

Saturday, December 13th, 2008

Lion's Mane Jellyfish sent to me by Mike McKay from Key Largo.

Lion's Mane Jellyfish photo sent to me by Mike McKay of Key Largo.

The National Science Foundation has published a very interesting report on jellyfish in multimedia (mostly Flash I think) format on their website. If you have any interest in jellyfish, I highly recommend you check it out.

An interesting statistic given by the report is that 200,000 people are stung by jellyfish each year in Florida. I don’t know how they would come up with such a number, and I question the accuracy of that. I suspect they must have asked some lifeguards how many jellyfish stings they treat each year and multiplied that by the number of public beaches. I don’t know how else they would calculate that, since the vast majority of stings are not reported to anyone except, perhaps, a lifeguard. But what do I know?

If you are one of those unlucky people who has been stung by a jellyfish, and if you’ve ever found yourself wondering “what good are they?” or “what purpose do jellyfish serve?” you may be amazed after you read the article.

And, be sure to visit my web page about Florida jellyfish for lots of photos, and a cell phone video of a box jellyfish (Chironex) sent to me from Boynton Beach, FL. Those box jellies are bad boys.

Tags: Florida jellyfish, Jellyfish
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Moon Jellyfish Wash Up on Florida Beaches

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

We’ve just returned from a wonderful trip to the Florida Panhandle beaches. While visiting Santa Rosa Beach we encountered several moon jellyfish (Aurelia aurita) in the shallow water and on the beach.

Moon Jellies can produce a mild sting, but are not dangerous. They can be hard to see in the water. Some were washing up on the sand. These jellies are about the size of a large dinner plate.

We came upon an arrangement of jellyfish in the beach sand where someone had been collecting them from the beach. These jellyfish were dying anyway, so no harm done, but I’d never seen this before (below).

The Florida panhandle does seem to have a lot more jellyfish than the peninsular Gulf coast. Several locals I spoke to agreed that in the panhandle, the month of June tends to be heavy on seaweed and jellyfish. They call the seaweed “June grass.” 2008, I understand, brought an extended June grass season.

Did you read my blog entry about the “dog flies” on Florida panhandle beaches?

Tags: aurelia aurita, Florida jellyfish, moon jellyfish
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