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khiemtranWe were at the beach at Barwon Heads yesterday, when I spotted a familiar transparent blob by the edge of the water and pointed it out to Liem and his cousins. Look out, I told them. They'll sting if you touch them. A little girl of about four then walked up, picked up the jelly fish, told us it wouldn't sting at all, then walked off with it. To our amazement, the whole beach was soon full of kids all picking up and playing with jellyfish. I tried it just to be sure [1], and, sure enough, there was no sting (although most of them had no visible tentacles).
The funny thing is, I grew up in this area, and it never would have occured to me to pick up one of those jellyfish, because everyone knew they stung you. Plus, being in Australia, getting stung is usually the least of your worries. It seems like every third piece of wildlife is just waiting to deal you a horrible maiming or an excruciating death (we take our wildlife seriously down here).
It's 8:30 am the next morning now, and so far, no one has come down with any latent reactions...
[1] I could just see myself in the hospital emergency ward explaining why we had been stupid enough to play with jellyfish and getting to the part where I say "but the little girl sounded like she knew what she was doing..."
The funny thing is, I grew up in this area, and it never would have occured to me to pick up one of those jellyfish, because everyone knew they stung you. Plus, being in Australia, getting stung is usually the least of your worries. It seems like every third piece of wildlife is just waiting to deal you a horrible maiming or an excruciating death (we take our wildlife seriously down here).
It's 8:30 am the next morning now, and so far, no one has come down with any latent reactions...
[1] I could just see myself in the hospital emergency ward explaining why we had been stupid enough to play with jellyfish and getting to the part where I say "but the little girl sounded like she knew what she was doing..."
