Beautiful and Dangerous

How can something this simple and beautiful ....99 percent water...be so complex and dangerous?

Immediate First Aid Advice: Box jellyfish (Carybdea alata): 1. Douse or spray the sting liberally with vinegar. 2. Pluck off any visible tentacles carefully - try not to use your fingers, use your fins, a towel, etc. instead to brush them away. 3. For severe pain, try applying a hot pack. If heat makes the sting feel worse, try applying a cold pack or ice to the sting. 4. Get medical help for severe reactions.IMMEDIATE MEDICAL ATTENTION MAY BE REQUIRED as their stinging may bring aboutanaphylactic shock.

Jellyfish are any planktonic marine member of a group of invertebrate animals composed of about 200 described species of the class Scyphozoa(phylum Cnidaria) or of the class Cubozoa, which was formerly considered an order of Scyphozoa. The term, jellyfish, is also often used in referring to certain other cnidarians that have a medusoid (saucer- or bell-shaped) body form, such as hydromedusae, the siphonophores (including even thePortuguese man-of-war which technically is not a jellyfish but a pelagic colonial hydroid or hydrozoan), as well as unrelated forms such as salps and comb jellies. Seventy of the 200 species of jellyfish are known to sting - causing a range of reactions in humans: from mild skin irritation to death. The sting of the sea wasp, Chironex fleckeri, is so toxic that it can cause death. Some even call this creature the "deadliest animal on earth." Free-swimming Scyphozoan medusae jellyfish occur in all oceans and include the commonly familiar disk shaped animals that are often found floating along the shoreline. The bodies of most range in diameter from about 1 to 16 inches (2 to 40 centimeters); however, some species are considerably larger with diameters of up to 6 1/2 feet (2 meters). The bulk of the Scyphozoan medusae jellyfish consists of almost ninety-nine percent water as a result of the composition of the jelly that forms the bulk in nearly all species. Like their close relatives, sea anemones and corals, jellyfish have no head, no heart and no skeleton. Jellyfish don't have brains - because their bodies are organized differently from ours. Most animals we encounter have what's called bilateral - or two-sided - symmetry. They have a head end and a tail end. In the head end, they have a concentration of nerve cells -- where these cells are complex, we call it a brain. The box jellyfish, Tripedalia cystophora, a cubozoan, is a bizarre, highly poisonous predator . "These are fantastic creatures with 24 eyes, four parallel brains and 60 arseholes," says Dan Nilsson, a vision expert from the University of Lund in Sweden. (Source: New Scientist, 8 November 2003, p. 34) Dan