Saturday, October 8, 2011

So I saw Alex's Post

And I went and looked the jellyfish up on google and got to Wikipedia.
It is pretty scary, but then I clicked on a link and it took me to largest organisms page.
And 2 things caught my eye.
1. Ocean Sunfish
They grow up to 4m long, but they look so weird. It's kinda like a turtle/fish/shark/piece of plastic in one.
Here is a picture:
Yeh and they only really keep them in captivity in Japan because they have very specific needs in terms of water and stuff. Apparently, they are quite a popular tourist attraction.
2. Continuing on the Jellyfish theme, a Box Jellyfish
There is an anti-venom for these but if stung badly, it can kill you in under 3 minutes, as the pain is so intense, people go into shock in the water.
Here is a picture,

They are at leat 5,500 recorded deaths from their stings in the last 120 years, from the Phillipines, Thailand, Vietnam and the Northern Coast of Australia (Like Cairns) but only 64 have occurred in Australia since 1883, thanks to medicine and good hospitals & roads, unlike other countries.
and yeh, they are pretty scary. Oh and they have 24 eyes.

Also fun fact, of the 10 most poisonous animals in the world, 6 of them live in and around Australia. My question is Why? Just wondering.

1 comment:

Xedalenar said...

yeah in exchange for being almost barren of natural disasters we are given venomous creatures.

^and what Jon said, quite logistical.