Dale Ptycia, age 13, of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, for his question:
What is a sea wasp?
There is a sea lily and a sea cucumber, a seahorse and a sea cow and once there lived a sea scorpion. These creatures bear slight resemblances to their land dwelling namesakes, though naturally they are in no way related. The sea wasp could never be mistaken for a yellow jacket or any other insect at least on sight. However, he has a waspy sting. It is far worse than a sting from a bad tempered yellow jacket. Sometimes it is fatal.
The sea wasp belongs in the genus of cuboidal jellyfish, so named because his umbrella is shaped like a cube. In certain tropical and semitropical seas, swimmers and fishermen take off when they see his boxy blob of clear jelly in the water. The tentacles that dangle from each corner bear deadly dangerous stingers. The sea wasp has a voracious appetite and swims very fast to catch up with his fish dinners.
He propels himself by jets of water, created as he opens and shuts his four¬cornered umbrella. Then the hungry hunter is in hot pursuit, he may squirt ISO jets a minute. The most deadly species is Chiropsalmus quadrigatus, found off northern Australia, around the Philippines and in the Indian Ocean. Japanese fishermen call him the fiery medusa and turn their boats when they see his boxy blob of pulsing jelly. Swimmers sprint to safety, for this sea wasp's sting is said to be fatal within three to eight minutes.
Milder sea wasps are found in the Atlantic, southward from the Carolinas as far as Brazil and share the habits of their fiercer relatives. However, the mildest cuboidal jellyfish delivers an agonizing sting. Even when beached by stormy gales, they can sting careless bare feet running over the sand.
Naturally these mindless creatures do not sting people on purpose. The rows of poisonous glands in their trailing tentacles are triggered to sting anything they touch. The object is to paralyze or kill a sizeable fish that can be devoured without a struggle. Numerous sensors in the tentacles detect what may be edible food. When the object is human skin, the stingers react automatically. This built in mechanism continues to operate long after a cuboidal jellyfish is beached and presumed dead.
Many other jellyfish are armed with stinging tentacles, though these are the worst. We can be thankful that all the sea wasps are smaller than those jellyfish with saucers eight feet wide, trailing tentacles down 200 feet. The sides of most sea wasps measure only about one or two inches, though one measures ten inches over his cuboidal roof. It is wise to poke beached jellyfish with a stick and beware the saucers and all other types when in the water.