Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1949-08-07
Sea Nett|es:
PorcuPines' That
Ride the Tide
Pose 6

nR. R. v. TRU1TT-who, of all people, should
IL know better-unthinkingly rubbed the cor
ner of his eye after handling specimen of
Dactylometra Quinquecirrha moment later
his eye began to smart, and he fastened to the
sink to give it wash.
Nothing helps much, really" he said. "A
sea nettle is a pesky thing, no matter how you
look at it,"
To which several million bathers undoubtedly
will say amen. DR.. Truitt who probably knows
more about the gooey tentacled critters than
anybody else in America, only saying in
nicer way what bathers mutter they gingery
swim about the Chesapeake Bay and its tribu-
taries at this time of the year.
This happens to be particularly crucial
time in the sea-nettle world, according to Dr.
Truitt, who says that the local variety of jelly
fish reaches sexual maturity and spawns the
first week of August give or take a few days.
The adult males show up pinkish and the
females grayish brown. The new crop of little
ones won't come up until early next summer to
spread anguish among water-loving humans
Dr. Truitt, director of the Chesapeake Biolog-
ical Laboratory at Solomons Island Nd, is one
of the several persons now living who have made
a study of the Dactylometra, the scientists
name for it. One of the oddities about the sea
nettle is how many people have had painful
know anything about it.
The sea nettle, consisting mostly of stomach
and tentacles, is IS per cent water and S per
cent animal matter. How can such unsub-
stantial little blob, floating aimlessly about,
int1ict such pain upon the highest order of
animal, namely, man? Most people think he does
it with the tentacles. Not so, says DR.. Truitt
he's got darts all over.
The nettle is covered with hundreds of wart-
he uh
magnifed several hundred times. These cells
cover the tentacles and the umbrellalike body
They are about 1500th the diameter of linen
thread. At the base of each cell is tiny trigger
which, when touched, literally explodes the
"stinger" from the cell. 1t is impossible to come
in contact with a nettle without setting off
whole batteries of singing cells.
These threads come out with such force that
they penetrate the victims skin and inject the
fluid from the poison sac DR.. Truitt says the
acid is what causes the singing sensation, al
though another scientist has written that the
shooting of countless threads into the skin
causes the sting.
The reason they don't hurt when you pick
them up by hand, DR.. Truitt explains is that
the cuticle of the hand is tough enough to repel
the inf1nitesimal barbs. But the hand can be
hurt, anyway because the softer skin between
the fingers can't take it.
There are no cases on record of any one
being seriously affected by stings from the
Chesapeake Bay variety of jellyhsh, which is
relatively stunted pale fellow. But in the tropics
and the Orient, where nettles grow big, there
are instances of fatalities which may have been
indirectly due to other One type of nettle
found in the North Atlantic years ago, called
the "sea blubber," was 7h feet in diameter, with
tentacles l20 feet long. The jellyfish has even
been used device in mystery story 1.-The
Lions Name" in which Sherlock Holmes solved
a fatal jellyfish poisoning.
Sea nettles use their sting to paralyze their
nrev Thew eat small fish crabs other oroar-