This is one of the deadliest animals known.
It's a box jellyfish. Those lovely tentacles hold a very powerful venom. If a swimmer encounters the box jellyfish and gets the tentacles on them, it's extremely painful. The pain can cause swimmers to go into shock; in the water they can drown.
Box jellyfish can kill. It's no laughing matter.
If a box jellyfish victim comes ashore with the tentacles still attached, the standard way to treat the stinging tentacles has been to wash them off with vinegar (if it's available - if not, urine can work too, but not as well. Seriously.) New research has indicated that maybe that isn't the best way to do it. But the research was attacked as not being conducted in such a way as to be comparable to the situation when a swimmer actually has tentacles on their skin.
Read about it here:
Should we stop using vinegar to treat box jelly stings? Not yet
So now there's this scientific debate going on about whether or not washing off the tentacles with vinegar is a good protocol to follow, or not. All of which is very scientifically interesting and proper, but when someone has burning, stinging box jellyfish tentacles on their skin, they aren't interested in the specifics, because they are danger of DYING. So, based on the current state of the science, if a swimmer gets stung by a box jellyfish, don't consult the Internet to see what to do. Wash them off with vinegar as fast as possible.
(Of course, if you're accidentally reading this because you're searching for how to treat someone that's been stung by a box jellyfish, then you didn't follow my advice. OK, take care of that unfortunate victim NOW!)
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