A leading marine biologist has warning swimmers off Donegal to extra extra caution following an influx of the mauve stinger and string jellyfish.
University College Cork’s Dr Tom Doyle is one of the country’s leading jellyfish specialists.
He was speaking after tens of thousands of the dangerous jellyfish appeared along the west coast.
“The adults have this beautiful pink-mauve colour – very striking – but then the juveniles have this golden brown colour and then at some stage, they change. They begin to get this mauve colour.
“They have lots of really fascinating elements about them. If they have no food, they can shrink down to about 80% of their own size and when the food becomes available again, they will just start growing.
But Dr Doyle warned swimmers to avoid swimming near the jellyfish
“There is a coastal current that runs along the shelf edge of Ireland, and in the years that it is weak it tends to allow this influx of oceanic water inshore and with that come the oceanic species like this mauve stinger jellyfish, so we think that might be what is happening.”
The advice for swimmers is to take care such is the risk of being stung.
“I definitely wouldn’t recommend anyone swim anywhere near these. They are called the mauve ‘stinger’ so you can get a very bad sting, not as bad as the one from, say, the Portuguese man o’ war. But some people can get a very bad reaction, and you can get scarring almost like a tattoo, the pigment of the jellyfish can be transferred into your arm.
“I would definitely warn swimmers to beware, especially on the south coast right now, and off Donegal with the String jellyfish, just to be careful.”
The public are being asked to submit their sightings on the Big Jellyfish Hunt Facebook and to post them on the NBDC jellyfish sightings page on the Biodiversity Ireland website.
