Tiny 'meat-loving' marine creatures 'eat' teenager's legs at Melbourne beach | Hacker News Reader

Tiny 'meat-loving' marine creatures 'eat' teenager's legs at Melbourne beach

theguardian.com

45 pointschadcmulligan20 comments

> The next night, Kanizay went back to the beach with a pool net full of meat and captured the creatures he said were responsible.

That is probably the most Australian thing I have ever heard...

"Throw another barbie on the shrimp!" ??

Don't do that, you'll mush the shrimp

A solution has been found http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/flesheating-bugs-at-bright...

Is there anything on that continent that's not trying to kill you?

It's always Australia with the bizarre life forms. Giant spiders, other spiders and tiny jellyfish that are lethally poisonous, and now flesh-eating marine invertibrates.

We're normally pretty safe from the beasties down here in Melbourne. This case is really strange, especially considering how many people are in the water here every day. It's not like up north, with jellyfish nets, crocs, etc.

Then again, last year I was knee-deep a couple of beaches over from this incident and an unidentified creature (probably stingray) slashed my foot from heel to toe - so maybe we are a bit conditioned.

First, what the actual fuck? Second, am I missing something, how did they stop the bleeding? I feel like the story just stopped with no further explanation?

I imagine his body stopped it via a natural clotting mechanism. All that was required was removal of the lice.

This is absolute nightmare fuel, though.

With only one person affected, it sounds like this person had an odd reaction of some sort, rather than some super flesh-eating monster being on the loose.

The way they describe the wounds continuing to bleed profusely reminds me of leech bites, which even once the leech is removed, will continue to bleed because of the bite shape and anti-coagulation agents the leech has in its saliva.

Actually they look like rather voracious flesh-eating/bloodsucking tiny shrimps: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/bitten-teens-dad-films-bri...

Perhaps one day Australia will be safe for human habitation.

Hopefully this isn't a sign that warmer ocean temperatures and higher levels of dissolved CO2 are making the oceans more hospitable for creatures like this.

Is the only evidence that it was sea lice that when they went back with meat, sea lice ate it? That seems pretty thin, but I guess it's better than nothing.

Why? It's unlikely that you'd find multiple parasites like that given it's a novel-enough story to make news in the first place. Even in Australia, this doesn't normally happen when you wade in to the ocean.

Moreover, it's likely that certain tides had washed a population of them into the beach (Melbourne's beaches are in a huge bay - Port Phillip bay - and the marker [1] indicates Brighton where he swam) so they're unlikely to disperse too quickly until a tide/weather change shifts them back out or disperses them throughout the bay. Additionally, if I recall correctly there's been wind/rain across Melbourne from the south-east over the last weekend, which would also wash them towards the Brighton side of the bay.

[1]: https://goo.gl/maps/WzQX4UDpp6k

It sounded like they haven't identified the creatures yet.

Another media article that could go just a bit farther and provide so much more...

Sea lice are parasitic creatures, although feeding on tissue and blood, havent seen them outright attacking and feeding

He's lucky he only soaked his legs and didn't take a full on swim.

add another Australian monster to the list

And this is what nightmares are made of...

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