Talk:Irukandji jellyfish

100X stronger than cobra venom?
Ok I am new at editing so be kind to me please... I just made my first major edit i think. I took out the sentence comparing this venom with 'cobras' and 'tarantulas' (I agree with the comment lower on this page that these terms are meaningless... which species ???). I saw the citation needed note with this statement and went looking... I could not find any scientific research on the web where Irukandji venom was testing against any snakes or spiders. Admittedly I am still pretty pathetic at searching so maybe I missed it. Being 'old school', I then called James Cook University to see if they knew of any research but there was a cyclone on at the time and I will have to try again when things settle down there...

In the meantime, I decided to remove the offending statement because it was being used all over internet, mostly uncited but those that did, got it from wikipedia. This is exactly why for years, as a science teacher, I was always trying to get my students to look beyond wikipedia references. Now that i am a rookey editor here, I am actually reassured by this process of editing and discussion of our edits and think wiki isn't so bad after all :)

Ok blast away... did i do the right thing? (I will definitely get back to JCU tomorrow and if I can, add a statement about relative toxicity with a reference.) Reefswaggie (talk) 07:29, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Any contentious statement that has no source can be removed without issue, and, when we're dealing with science articles, they probably should be removed. It can always be added back later when someone has a reliable source for it.  When one researches scientific articles, Google Scholar is often a better source than a normal Google search, but it's frustrating to use Google Scholar without access to subscription journals.


 * Most of us recognize that Wikipedia has prominent faults, but it works surprisingly well for something that really shouldn't work at all.  By the way, as a matter of convention, new discussions are usually added to the bottom of the page.  It's not a big deal, but some people may miss your posts if you add them to the top.  Thanks for the explanatory note about your edit, and thanks for contributing to Wikipedia. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 21:50, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Most poisonous?
Unfortunately, that award goes to the poison dart frog of South America.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Poison_Frog

Well,i think it's the most poionous venomous JELLYFISH. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yoshi39 (talk • contribs) 19:47, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Absurd postulation
The photo in this article obviously shows a woman's fingers, thus exaggerating the size of this beast. A man's hand might determine its true size. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.109.126.89 (talk) 00:57, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Darwin Award?
As a bit of trivia, this animal is related to a Darwin Award "Honorable Mention" claiming that Dr. Jack Barnes tested the stinging effects of the newly discovered jellyfish on himself and his son. While the account is shown as "confirmed," the date on the event is in 1966, the reference on this article has Dr. Barnes publishing in 1964, so something is inaccurate somewhere. &mdash; Eoghanacht  talk 19:24, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Any pictures of it?

LOLWTF?
This article is ranked seventh in the most viewed articles of August 2006. Is there some sort of mix-up here? Floaterfluss 01:15, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

And it's on there again, under 11th...XD 86.136.198.176 22:17, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Looking at the article, it looks like the Discovery channel mentioned it in one of their shows, so depending on when it aired, that might account for the high number of hits this article got. That, in addition to this being just another example of the briny horrors of the deep, small enough to hold in a hand and with venom enough to make you regret closing that hand. --HassourZain 16:15, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

The hit MMORPG Guild Wars: Factions features jellyfish-like monsters named Irukandji. This may be why the page is recieving so many visits. Crenel 15:25, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

There was an episode of CSY:NY with this jellyfish as the murder weapon. I've just added that reference to the pop culture section. I think this is a possible cause, but I don't know when that episode was originally aired. Leonelm 10:15, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

About merging
I don't think we should merge it. Irukandji jellyfish are animals. The Irukandji syndrome is a result of the sting. However, although they are closely related, they are different things. Otherwise, I would merge the Irukandji syndrome into the jellyfish part.

--Heero Kirashami 04:31, 30 January 2007 (UTC)


 * If there is a section on animal-toxin induced syndromes, the Irukandji syndrome article might belong there. 68.42.11.109 20:06, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

jellyfish to invertebrate
I changed the opening line from "The Irukandji is a small, extremely venemous jellyfish" to "a small, extremely venemous invertebrate". It is a species of the box jellyfish class, Cubozans, and according to the article on them Cubozans actually aren't true jellyfish; they are a similiar but seperate category of creature. Therefore this is more accurate. 124.180.60.168 (talk) 07:47, 25 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Cubozoans are a class from the subphylum medusozoa, medusozoans are commonly known as jellyfish. Cubozoans, or box jellyfish, are therefore a subgroup of jellyfish, not a separate group, and so the use of the term "jellyfish" is appropriate. BioStu (talk) 12:36, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Cleaning up
I just went through the article and changed around the opening segment to make it flow better, as well as fixing a few minor grammatical points. If no-one has objections, I'll remove the cleanup tag.

James.nvc (talk) 01:44, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

New species of Irukandji jellyfish poses a problem for Wikipedia
A new species of Irukandji jellyfish, Malo kingi, has been identified. This poses a serious problem for this article, as Irukandji jellyfish is turning out to be a type of jellyfish (two species, seperate genera) rather than a species.

The best idea I have to to move this article to the scientific name's own page and keep any text about Irukandji Syndrome here. We definitely need to get rid of the taxobox as it no longer applies.

Here is a free excerpt from Zootaxa: Bob the Wikipedian (talk) 15:28, 27 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I moved this to Carukia barnesi, and created a brief article on Irukandji jellyfish as a non-taxon. This move was immediately reverted by SqueakBox, although for some reason he reverted to a title with a capital-J. SqueakBox then merged the Malo kingi article into this one, creating an article with two taxoboxes, on different species, in different genera no less, related only by an accident of morphological convergence, and a shared common name. This is, in my opinion, an absolutely ridiculous outcome. Hesperian 02:17, 28 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Mine, too. C. barnesi and M. kingi are seperate species, and, as such, need their own separate pages.  Note that the M. maximus, another species of Malo, is not an Irukandji jelly.  This is obviously a per-species classification, and should be written in the same style as Vegetable (as opposed to Fruit).  We all know that it's possible for something to be a fruit and a vegetable at the same time (such as tomatoes, cucumbers, etc).  Why, then, do we treat Irukandji as a taxon?  It's not, so it shouldn't keep the two species from having their own decent articles.  In fact, this article shouldn't have any species-specific information at all-- that belongs on each species's own page.  Okay...I'm ranting.  I'll stop now. Bob the Wikipedian (talk) 13:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Support having two seperate articles, one for each species of Irukandji form jelly fish, ie one for each of C barnesi and M kingi. In addition, the current article page should be an expanded disambiguation page, explaining Irukandji as a 'form' of jellyfish, with at least two different species as members.  Miscellanous material such as 'pop culture' section could be included on this expanded disambiguation page.  Perhaps a move request should be posted on this article .. to facilitate debate/discusson? Bruceanthro (talk) 14:35, 28 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I won't go so far as to say it should be a disambiguation page... I'll go so far as to say that not only should there be two separate articles, this should also be an article. There's a lot of information on this page already that isn't species-specific, and it needs to stay here. Bob the Wikipedian (talk) 16:34, 28 May 2008 (UTC)


 * As more and more Irukandji species are discovered we're up to 5 right now - all 4 species in the genus Malo and C. barnesi - I'm beginning to wonder if Irukandji will before long become synonymous with the Carukiidae family. Does anyone know if the other species in Carukia genus is considered an Irukandji? Or anything regarding the other two genera Gerongia and Morbakka that are in the Carukiidea family? Annon JH 13:34, 24 July 2015

Pop Culture Section
It seems there's an edit war starting over this section. It's a shame that it's an anonymous user who is removing it. I for one agree that that section does nothing to improve the article, although I can see how others would disagree. Where lies the middle ground, or is there none? WierdJohn (talk) 20:25, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Jellies
Monterey Bay aquarium and other marine professionals refer to these animals as either jellies or sea jellies, since they are not fish. http://www.mbayaq.org/efc/efc_se/se_jellies_conservation.asp It's akin to calling pandas, marsupial mammals, "panda bears" as bears are placental mammals. cmross6 (talk) 02:45, 25 July 2008 (UTC)


 * No jellyfish species could be defined as a "fish". The term "jellyfish" refers to a distinct group of invertebrates belonging to the subphylum medusozoa, of which the species discussed in this article belong. The term "jellyfish" is thus appropriate, see the jellyfish article for more information. BioStu (talk) 12:36, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Jellyfish v. jellyfish
Why must "Jellyfish" be capitalized in this entry? ←Signed:→ Mr. E. Sánchez  Get to know me! / Talk to me! ←at≈:→ 08:13, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It shouldn't as it doesn't match Wikipedia's naming convention for article titles. One editor tried to remedy by an attempted move, but ran into difficulties. Perhaps you (or another editor with experience moving/renaming articles) can assist? I don't dare try myself, as I don't have enough experience and would probably run into trouble. Good luck! Geoff  TC 15:58, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Deletion / Reinstatement
What was up with the deletion ("Article has no meaningful, substantive content" is demonstrably untrue)? Was this an error, or misunderstanding? Cheers, Arjuna (talk) 20:00, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Unclear comparisons
"Its venom is very powerful, 100 times as potent as that of a cobra, and 1000 times as potent as that of a tarantula."

As that of *which* cobra? A "cobra" is not a definite species of snake! The term most often relates to any snake out of the Elapidae family. But any of these snakes certainly has a different venom with a potency that differs likewise.

As that of *which* tarantula? A "tarantula" too does not refer to any precise spider; instead it may refer to a whole group of spiders belonging to the family Theraphosidae, as long as we're not speaking about true tarantulas.

The comparison, as stated, is unencyclopedic and moreover, I guess, scientifically untenable. You cannot simply compare venoms of completely different animals. It wouldn't work. This sentence actually means to say, that if X people in, say, 100 years are dying of a cobra bite, then X/10 people in 100 years must consequently be dying of a tarantula bite. Which adds up to utter nonsense. The venom of this or that snake is not merely x-times more "powerful" than any one of this or that spider. Instead it's just different, different in its chemical composition and different in how it can affect, for example, a human body. So even if you're only comparing the respective amount it takes to have a potentially lethal dose for a human, we still would need names of concrete species, in place of what are essentially empy words, used only in a popular setting. Zero Thrust (talk) 15:48, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

14 years later .... When you say "the venom from X is N times more powerful than the venom from Y", that conventionally means that the LD50 dose of venom X is N times less than the LD50 does of venom Y. That definition has been consistently used throughout Wikipedia. Mind you, I recognize that does not address the issue of this critter versus "cobra" versus "tarantula", which is a separate topic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8003:E40F:9601:A1D3:C033:8E6A:9A09 (talk) 11:36, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Contradiction
The article says that one of the symptoms of irukandji syndrome is "a severe drop in heart rate and blood pressure". It then goes on to list treatments for hypertension - "Treatment is symptomatic, with antihistamines and anti-hypertensive drugs used to control inflammation and hypertension" - the only trouble is, hypertension is an elevated blood-pressure, not a severely lowered blood-pressure.

Which is it? The article makes no sense as it stands and requires amending - sadly, I know nothing about the condition, so I have no idea which of the statements is in error - only that one of them must be. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.25.211.106 (talk) 21:57, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
 * An article entitled "Fatal envenomation by jellyfish causing Irukandji syndrome", declares that patients with Irukandji syndrome suffered from hypertension.
 * Located at: http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/177_07_071002/fen10297_fm.pdf?q=irukandji-jellyfish
 * I don't know how to implement references so I'll just leave this here.

Tentacle length contradiction
The biology section suggests the tentacles grow up 35cm ("...and four tentacles, which range in length from just a few centimeters to up to 35 cm in length.") while the diagram in this section shows that the tentacles grow up to 1m. That is a 30 fold difference in the two values, this needs to be addressed.

BioStu (talk) 12:12, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Ummm.... The jelly does not grow up to a meter... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.4.186.227 (talk) 12:46, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * This article is about a polyphyletic group which includes members of two genera. One species is apparently considerably smaller than another. Apparently whoever has been editing this article has not been taking this into consideration. Bob the Wikipedian (talk • contribs) 15:19, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Species found in the water supply of Derby -in the British Isles? ? ?  Surely they mean Derby in Western Australia
The entry states "according to a National Geographic documentary on jellyfish, the species has been found in waters as far north as the British Isles (some had been found in the water supply of the city of Derby)"

I have not seen the National Geographic documentary, but surely the Derby referred to is the town in Western Australia rather than the city in the British Isles.

Derby in the UK is at least 70km from the coast!

Derby in Western Australia is only 200km from Broome, which is a known location for Irukandji jellyfish. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.140.23.58 (talk) 21:05, 28 February 2011 (UTC) A Google search showed nothing supporting the claim that the species is found outside tropical Australia. I have deleted the dubious claims. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.169.176.166 (talk) 01:29, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

I noticed that the article again says that the range extends to Florida and the British Isles. Is that wrong? 184.58.100.105 (talk) 01:52, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

How many people were tested on?
This page says he tested it on himself while his son and lifeguard watched.

The article on the syndrome says he tested it on all three of them ( I find that hard to believe ).

Someone did that on purpose? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.239.123.191 (talk) 01:12, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

how many species?
There are six known species of Irukandji

I count five. --92.202.12.107 (talk) 14:18, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Inappropriate quote: "it is a 12 on a scale of 0 to 10"
This quote makes no sense:
 * On a pain index of zero to ten, with zero being no pain at all and ten being the most excruciating pain imaginable, Dr. Jamie Seymour ranked the pain of a sting from an Irukandji jellyfish a twelve.

Even though people regularly say this, it scientifically makes no sense and doesn't belong in the article. Just get rid of the "pain scale". Not to mention this scale is very odd (11 numbers?) 184.58.100.105 (talk) 01:55, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree with you. I we have a better way to say it with a reference we could do that or we could remove it entirely. Go ahead. Air.light (talk) 01:33, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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What? This Needs to be Clarified
"Contrary to belief, researchers from James Cook University and Cairns hospital in far north Queensland have found that vinegar promotes the discharge of jellyfish venom.

"You can increase the venom load in your victim by 50 per cent," says Associate Professor Jamie Seymour from the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine at the university. "That's a big amount, and that's enough to make the difference, we think, between someone surviving and somebody dying."[16]

'How about 'Vineagar has not been recommended as it may, or it will...' Msjayhawk (talk) 04:32, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 15:33, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Toxicity. Nothing new.
I’m trying to make sense of the 100 times as potent as that of a cobra statement.

The List of dangerous snakes has the Inland taipan (O. microlepidotus) as 109 times the toxicity of a King Cobra, and 80 times the Indian Cobra. However the Inland Taipan figure varies (on that page) (by 4.4x, to give 24.8x instead of 109x) and the “100x” for the Irukandji could quite easily be “20x”.

Already been queried above in 2010 and 2014.

Still no quotable LD₅₀ research?

MBG02 (talk) 12:12, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Mis-type?
In para. 2 of the Irukandji Syndrome section it says “"You can increase the venom load in your victim by 50 per cent,"” (by using white vinegar) Should this be DEcrease? Boscaswell  talk  05:42, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Contradiction with the Irukandji Syndrome article
This article states that Jack Barnes let the jellyfish sting himself, his 9 year old son (wtf?) and a lifeguard. In contrast the Irukanji Syndrome article states that his son and the lifeguard merely observerd, and then rushed him to the ICU. So which one is true? — Preceding unsigned comment added by May 2021 (talk • contribs)
 * The former, strangely enough. Now . Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 10:41, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

how did they get that tiny jellyfish?
???? 49.145.135.46 (talk) 10:10, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Invertebrate Zoology
— Assignment last updated by Wildlife Nerd8694 (talk) 19:02, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Reliable Sourcing for "Impending Sense of Doom/Death"
This is the edit where this fact was added, added in summer 2009, where the first google-able source verifying this fact occurred in Fall 2009, and cites the symptom in quotes. While cited now, I could not find evidence of psychological. The editor in question is an IP address, so I can't verify. May remove this fact if no one raises objections. It may be an example of citogensis. I will leave this item for discussion up for at least one week before deletion.

Any pointer to a pre-2009 Wikipedia-quality source is appreciated, or some post-2009 source that explicitly references incidence/relative-incidence of the the symptom in a medical setting would be appreciated, should anyone come across one. Kwkintegrator (talk) 19:52, 15 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Removed. Kwkintegrator (talk) 01:27, 30 January 2024 (UTC)