There have already been 22,787 recorded stings since the beginning of Australia’s summer on Dec. 1, compared with 6,831 for the same period last year, the authority said. The state’s beaches, Mr. Lovitt said, are “absolutely littered” with jellyfish. But Kylie Pitt, the head of marine science in the School of Environment and Science at Griffith University in Queensland, said there was “remarkably little research done on bluebottles,” making it difficult to attribute arrival of the jellyfish to climate change. Another explanation for the spike in injuries, one expert said, could be the presence of the rare giant multitentacled bluebottle — which delivers an excruciating sting. “It tends to appear only every 10 to 30 years,” Lisa-ann Gershwin, a research scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Source: New York Times January 08, 2019 02:48 UTC