Sea wasp. A species of jellyfish, whose sting is fatal. It has the deadliest animal poison on the planet. Just 1.4 mg of the venom from its tentacles will kill a human. It mainly inhabits Australian waters.
Summary
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- 1 Features
- 2 Hábitat natural
- 3 Symptomatology when making contact with her
- 4 Sources
Features
The main body or umbrella is almost square in shape, translucent and green and blue in color , which makes it very difficult to distinguish them in the sea and therefore their sighting by bathers. It has about 60 cilia (tentacles) with an approximate length of 80 cm.
This jellyfish contains blisters full of poison on its surface, with 20,000 units of between 1.5 and 4 milliliters. The venom is a neurotoxin (LD50) whose (lethal dose in 50% of cases) is approximately 20 micrograms per kg of the subject’s mass. This means that with just 1.4 milligrams of poison, it can kill a grown man , or what amounts to the same thing, with the weight of a grain of salt .
The poison acts quickly on the nervous system , and after an initial reaction of the affected tissue that can develop ulcerations and/or necrosis, cardiorespiratory arrest occurs. It has 60 tentacles, each 3 meters long, and enough poison to kill 60 people.
Unlike common jellyfish, which are mostly blind, this species has four groups of twenty eyes. It is not clear if they are able to follow their targets with their eyes or how they process images, since they do not have a central nervous system. Locomotion is by impulses at 1.5 m/s, which gives it enough speed to catch tiny fish or small crustaceans as its diet.
He lives naturally
They can generally be found in the waters of Australia , on some African coasts, in Southeast Asia and in the Gulf of Mexico near Texas , although their exact distribution is unknown.
Symptoms when making contact with her
Generally, after only 3 minutes from the contact with the animal, the victim goes into cardiorespiratory arrest. The sea wasp kills more people each year than the sum of the deaths caused by all other marine animals . If you travel through waters where these jellyfish can live, the wetsuit is a perfect ally. This terrible jellyfish can swim for a short period of time at 2 meters per second while chasing its victims, which are nothing more than small crustaceans or tiny fish.
The minuscule amount of the volume of a grain of salt acts rapidly on the nervous system, and after an initial reaction in which ulcerations and necrosis develop accompanied by tremendous pain similar to that produced by acid or an extremely hot iron , cardiorespiratory arrest, sometimes in just a couple of minutes, depending on the size of the jellyfish and the amount of venom injected.
Symptoms also include nausea and vomiting, severe swelling and pain, slow heartbeat, and death of skin tissue . If the poison enters the blood system , death can occur in less than three minutes. There are some animals that are immune to the toxin , such as sea turtles , which are one of its few natural predators.
Topical treatment with vinegar of contact injuries decreases their danger.
According to National Geographic Magazine , young shrimp -hunting sea wasps have venom in only 5% of their stinging cells , while adults have 50%, allowing them to hunt larger prey by which become more deadly with age.
