An attack of carnivorous Sea Fleas at a Melbourne beach

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/flesheating-bugs-at-brighton-beach-what-really-ate-sam-and-why-20170807-gxqsab.html

by chadcmulligan • 9 years ago

90 23 9 years ago

theage.com.au

A follow up to my earlier post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14944815, not sure if this is the correct etiquette

Well, that makes a bit more sense - I thought it was odd that they said it was sea slugs, because they generally don't eat any flesh unless it is dead already. Sea lice look like they are not so fussy if you are still kicking around.

Listening to a friend of mine who works in the Sea Police here in the North of Australia - it sounds like if you ever needed to bump off anyone with little chance of getting caught, then throwing them off your boat in the Arafura Sea should do the trick.

Usually when people drown, their bodies tend to bloat and they tend to float until found by search parties, but in this particular sea, the sea slugs will usually bore holes in a dead body so that the gases escape, and the body sinks to the ocean bed. They almost never find anyone who has gone overboard accidentally or intentionally in these waters, according to him.

lobster_johnson• 9 years ago

The first reports talked about "sea lice", which are quite different.

The sea louse (or one type of it) is a parasite that famously eats the tongues of fish and "replace" the tongue by lodging themselves in the mouth of the fish. [1]

They also had an "expert" speculating about jellyfish larvae, which are colloquially (but incorrectly) also called sea lice, but they are not capable of biting, only stinging.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymothoa_exigua

robin_reala2• 9 years ago

Huh, I’ve always known a sealouse to be the aquatic equivalent to a woodlouse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligia_oceanica . Looks like I was wrong, or at least I learned a local name.

Herodotus38• 9 years ago

A small note because I keep seeing sea lice written, but the culprit was sea fleas, according to the article.

juhq• 9 years ago

What the hell australia

bitL• 9 years ago

Australia? Who could have thought...

Reminds me of that joke website (is it poisonous?). The first question was "Are you in Australia?" and if you confirmed you are, the answer was automatic "YES"...

chadcmulligan2• 9 years ago

I was thinking the Australian stuff is a bit over the top, then I had a think, within an hours drive of me is the Gympie Gympie tree http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-enviro..., there's a river where every now and then fishermen get attacked by flesh eating bacteria, someone down the road got bitten by a deadly snake the other day, there's snakes in the bush down the road, and of course spiders, so yeah, there's that.

idlewords• 9 years ago

Australians like their badass reputation of surviving on a continent full of deadly animals, but the biggest killers in Australia, by far, are horses and cows.

http://www.bobinoz.com/blog/12250/australias-most-dangerous-...

One of the remarkable things about the country is how few people die from the many venomous species there.

i_feel_great• 9 years ago

Most Australians never encounter these creatures in real life because work and television. But I do get out and snakes are everywhere (in Brisbane). Also redback and trapdoor spiders.

tomxor• 9 years ago

Until you mentioned Australia I thought this was Brighton in the UK

lsh• 9 years ago

I thought it was Brighton, SA until I read this particular article. Didn't realize Vic also had a Brighton...

thomasfoster96• 9 years ago

Reminds me of that joke website (is it poisonous?). The first question was "Are you in Australia?" and if you confirmed you are, the answer was automatic "YES"...

I think Australia must be unique in having at least one venomous/poisonous species of fish, amphibian, reptile and mammal.

wavefunction• 9 years ago

Maybe you mean venomous in a way that threatens a human.

That's true of every continent.

pvaldes• 9 years ago

mmhn not. Europe has examples in all those categories for example. Venomous mammals are rare in any case, but a few shrews have poison.

I wonder if in the case of the guy with wounded legs there was more than one actor involved.

meerita• 9 years ago

Both feets were harmed when he went to the water to attract so many slugs? Doesn't sounds quite right.

pwython• 9 years ago

and said the creatures were sea fleas, not sea lice as first thought.

Not sure what authority suggested sea lice first. Growing up in South Florida, I can say sea lice are much more annoying than these blood sucking fleas he ran into. The former are basically mosquitos of the ocean. Hours after swimming, you're itching for days from tiny bug bites. At any rate, sounds like the kid has some sort of hemophilia that made matters worse and created a viral scare. He got off easy.

An attack of carnivorous Sea Fleas at a Melbourne beach

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