[Coral-List] Cubo medusoids

Charles Mazel mazel at psicorp.com
Wed Jul 18 14:57:20 EDT 2007


There are things in life that you wish would happen more often (ah, those 
tropical nights with full moon, palm trees, gentle breezes) and things that 
you wish hadn't happened at all. Having once had a cubo tentacle draped 
across both sides of my neck and my upper lip I can assure you that being 
stung by one falls squarely in the latter category.

Now that I think about it, I was with Tom Goreau at the time. Reading his 
post full of ANIMALS ATTACK maybe this was intended for him and I was just 
an innocent bystander.

Charlie

Charles Mazel, Ph. D.
Principal Research Scientist
Physical Sciences Inc.
20 New England Business Center
Andover, MA 01810 USA
978 738-8227
978 689-3232 (fax)


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Thomas Goreau" <goreau at bestweb.net>
To: <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2007 11:15 AM
Subject: [Coral-List] Cubo medusoids


> Dear sea wasp avoiders,
>
> Sometimes they can really hurt.  In the early 1970s I was attacked by
> a swarm of cubo medusoids at night while snorkeling on the surface at
> Discovery Bay, Jamaica, holding a large underwater light so that Jim
> Porter could read the numbers on his coral oxygen respirometer.  I
> didn't see them until I had searing pains over my legs. I swung the
> light around, leaving poor Jim in the dark, and would kick them away.
> They would regroup, and come straight at me with tentacles extended,
> repeatedly. There was no doubt that they were using their eyespots to
> deliberately stalk me cooperatively, amazingly sophisticated behavior
> for brainless protoplasm.  I usually heal exceptionally rapidly from
> wasp, scorpion, most centipedes except those in Seychelles, and
> Portuguese Man of War stings, but all the next day I had the shivers
> and sharp pain in my kidneys and had to spend the day lying down, as
> did another person who ran into them. Not deadly, but no fun to be
> sure, and a lot worse than the time I had a Portuguese Man of War
> sitting on my shoulder with the tentacles running down my chest. Or
> even giving a barracuda the finger.
>
> Best wishes,
> Tom
>
> 



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