Swimmers have been warned to keep an eye out for stinging jellyfish which have been spotted along parts of the Suffolk coast.<\/p>\n
Compass jellyfish, which are native to UK waters and common in the summer months, have been seen off Felixstowe, Southwold and Aldeburgh in recent days.<\/p>\n
Lowestoft-based marine scientist Dr Adam Kennerley said the creatures could grow up to 30cm (11.8in) across and had large, trailing tentacles to catch small fish and plankton.<\/p>\n
“They belong to a wider group of jellies called sea nettles, which kind of gives you a clue as to one of the main issues,” added Kennerley, who urged people to simply avoid touching them. <\/p>\n
“From personal experience, they can give fairly painful stings, but symptoms can vary from person to person,” he told BBC Suffolk.<\/p>\n
“Most people describe them as a sharp burning or nettle-type sting, and the symptoms do usually go away within a few hours.”<\/p>\n
He said the high temperatures had possibly enticed the jellyfish towards the shore and people in the water need not panic but keep a watchful eye and avoid brushing against the jellyfish.<\/p>\n
“In fact, I’d argue they should be enjoyed if you look and don’t touch,” he added.<\/p>\n
“I think we’re very lucky to be sharing our waters with them.<\/p>\n
“They are very distinctive species in the UK, they’ve got these beautiful brown and orangey colours and those V-shaped markings across their body which look just like the points of a compass, hence their name.”<\/p>\n
A sting should be treated with basic first aid, Kennerley said, by firstly rinsing with cold sea water to cool it down, and removing any remaining tentacle without touching it.<\/p>\n
Any persistent stinging should be treated with warm water, not cold, he added.<\/p>\n
Do you have a story suggestion for Suffolk? Contact us below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Swimmers have been warned to keep an eye out for stinging jellyfish which have been spotted along parts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-659690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}