When I first heard about the Portuguese man-of-war, it seemed that some low-rent, horror-flick screenwriter was making the stuff up.

I could see the tentacled monster on the big screen of a drive-in theater, coming soon to a beach near you, with the requisite screams, mounting music, and ominous warning: what you are about to see is true.

This medusa has been around since before the dinosaurs and is, in fact, one of the most ancient
organisms on the planet. It looks on the surface like an innocent blue balloon skimming benignly across the sea, but below the waves lurk hundreds of purple and white tentacles up to one hundred feet long that can inflict a sting seventy-five percent as powerful as a cobra’s. One gentle brush and dozens of tightly sprung mousetraps explode barbed nematocysts under your skin, causing shock, muscle spasms, joint constriction, hysteria, chills, fever, nausea, and breathing problems that can lead to brain damage. Trying to escape the tentacles only triggers more of the million stinging cells. If that’s not creepy enough, this prehistoric nightmare is really four creatures in one. Each colonist has its own sinister role: the gas-filled, foot-long float propelling the sea ship on its way; the tentacles to stun and draw its victims upward, where they are devoured by the gastrozooids; and the gonozoid, which has both male and female reproductive parts and buds off hundreds of baby men-of-war. Swimming immunely among the man-of-war’s tentacles is a small mackerel, like a trusty little dog looking for scraps and luring other victims by making it seem safe. And what’s worse, even after the man-of-war is washed up on, say, South Beach, it can still come back from the dead to haunt you. One touch of the deflated blue balloon and the stinging cells can bring you to your knees.

This was not a horror movie I wanted to see up close, but then I talked with Larry Madin, director of the Ocean Life Institute at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who put things in perspective. First he reminded me that though the man-of-war is the most dangerous jellyfish in Vineyard waters, it is also, thankfully, the most rare. It thrives in tropical or subtropical temperatures drifting northward on the Gulf Stream, and heads in the Vineyard’s direction only when pushed off course by winds, storms, or tides. Last summer was one such case, and back in 1994 another, but generally man-of-war sightings are rare in these waters.

In two decades at Woods Hole, Madin has seen them in the harbor only a couple of times, which is why, one day ten years ago, he made a special trip with his colleagues out to the edge of the Gulf Stream to scoop a man-of-war into a bucket and bring it back for observation. This is not something you want to try at home. Madin is a man who has a collection of jellies in glass jars around his office. He knows, for instance, that he should have been wearing gloves. But there he was barehanded, and there was the man-of-war oozing out of the bucket, and sure enough a contracted tentacle brushed his wrist, and Madin was seized with pain. Before long, the powerful toxin had moved through
his system and one whole side of his body had gone numb.

Though this is not Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea and the jellyfish is not a true fish, I like to picture the scene on the edge of the Gulf Stream that way: man in Zodiac is lured out to catch the elusive monster fish and ends up caught by the fish instead. And what was the lesson learned? Fear? Repulsion? No, just the opposite, says Madin. Respect. Admiration. You always hurt the ones that love you. “They’re elegant creatures in the water,” says Madin, “with a beautifully adapted body plan and lifestyle. They’ve been around a lot longer than we have and are an important step in the ocean ecosystem.”

So the question remains: if a guy who’s been seriously stung by a man-of-war can feel a deep appreciation for the ancient creature, why can’t I?

What's not to love?

There are a thousand known species of jellyfish in the world, but scientists make new finds all the time. Last year they discovered a big red cannonball jelly with a half dozen stocky arms off the coast of California. The year before scientists found the fossil remains of thousands of jellyfish in a Wisconsin quarry that had been a beach 495 million years ago. Jellies come in all colors and sizes, from less than an inch to over seven feet, and are found in every ocean, primarily in shallow waters, but also down to depths of twelve thousand feet. In Micronesia, there’s a lake where jellyfish were trapped during a geological upheaval. Over a million and a half of them evolved without their sting. If you’ve ever longed to bathe in a pool of squirming lime jello, Jellyfish Lake is the destination of your dreams. Less appealing are the beaches in Australia where sixty-eight people have been killed since 1883 by the most dangerous species of all ­­– the box jelly.     

Thankfully the jellyfish in Vineyard waters are much less threatening. Besides the occasional man-
of-war, there are only the moon jelly, the lion’s mane, the comb jelly (which is not a true jelly, but a stingless ctenophore), and a dozen tiny ones under a half-inch that go unnoticed.

The moon jelly is a transparent six-inch saucer, with four pink horseshoe-shaped gonads inside. Its sting can cause your skin to prickle or feel mildly burned, but the discomfort shouldn’t last long and is nothing to worry about.

The lion’s mane – or winter jelly, since it’s a cold water species – is responsible for the more painful stings that occur on the Vineyard. Like the moon jelly, it generally grows to six to eight inches and is shaped like a saucer, but its tentacle clusters are reddish brown and produce a burning sensation that causes red welts to appear on your skin.  

The best way to avoid getting stung is to avoid jellyfish altogether – stay out of the water from June to September and keep a lookout for jellyfish washed up on the beach. Since that’s not much fun, the next best approach is to wear a body shield. A wet suit will keep the jellies’ stinging cells from harpooning your skin. It’s a particularly good idea to wear one if, say, you’re water-skiing near the Lagoon drawbridge between Vineyard Haven and Oak Bluffs, where jellyfish have been known to plague downed skiers waiting for their boats to come pick them up.

In Australia both men and women wear nylons on their arms and legs as a sort of makeshift wet suit to ward off the sting of the deadly box jelly. Named for its cube shape, the box jelly is a transparent, pale-blue creature that jets through shallow tropical waters. It inflicts pain through some five thousand stinging cells that line sixty ten-foot tentacles that hang from each corner of its body. If nylons or a wet suit aren’t your thing, an Israeli company has come up with a sunblock lotion that also protects against most jellyfish stings (though it hasn’t been tested against the Portuguese man-
of-war yet). The block is called SafeSea (www.nidaria.com) and comes in different strengths, from zero to fifty.

It’s waterproof, but a company spokes-man recommends it be reapplied after you’ve toweled off, just in case.

That said, stings happen. In the last four years, the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital has logged  twenty-three cases of jellyfish envenomizations, averaging only five to six per season. Victims have come from almost every Island beach, with a good number coming from Menemsha, says Dr. Alan Hirshberg, chief of emergency medicine at the hospital. In his free time, Hirshberg likes to canoe and, at times, has seen hundreds and hundreds of jellies in Lake Tashmoo, but last year not as many. If you’re looking for a summertime pest to worry about, says Hirshberg, the records at the hospital point to the tick as a far more bothersome creature.

 While they’re fascinating to watch from the safety of a boat, jellies are not as much fun close-up. A few years ago a female friend of ours was swimming along the beach at Bend in the Road in Edgartown when her bathing suit suddenly erupted with an itching, stinging sensation. She stood, tore the suit from her shoulders, and looked down. Globs of jellyfish squirmed against her bare skin. She hooted in disgust. Workmen on shore saw her bared breasts and hooted in delight.

At times like that you can’t help but feel that jellies have it in for you personally. Granted, they have no eyes, no ears, no separate hole for eating or excreting food, no central nervous system, no real control over which way they go, but still the term passive-aggressive comes to mind. What did you ever do to them? And why, when you try to get away from them, do they follow you? Suzan Bellincampi, education and interpretation coordinator for The Trustees of Reservations, a state conservation group, points out that they really aren’t trying to chase you down. When you move away from them, your current draws them after you. The resulting pressure causes their stingers to automatically release their natural defense.

“Don’t take it personally,” agrees Gus Ben David, longtime director of the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary in Edgartown. “Like ticks and mosquitoes, they’re just part of the outdoor life on the shore. There’s no such thing as good or bad in nature. We think it’s good if it benefits our interests, but it’s all a part of the intricate web of nature that we really don’t understand. As I always say, there’s no cruelty in nature. They aren’t trying to insult you or hurt your feelings. They may kill you, but that’s a different situation entirely.”

What to do if you get stung

For the unfortunate few who do get stung, Dr. Hirshberg advises that you not panic; an anxiety attack only exacerbates the problem. Unless you have been stung by a man-of-war or are extremely allergic to the jellies’ sting, the most that usually results is a red band that burns.

The first priority is to get away from the jellyfish and onto safe ground. The next step is to remove the microscopic stinging cells lodged in your skin, before more go off and intensify the pain.  Hirshberg recommends rinsing the affected area with a clean saline solution. Salt water can be used in a pinch, but it’s not as sterile. Don’t use fresh water, since it’ll only trigger more of the firing mechanisms. Rubbing alcohol is okay, but it will “sting like the dickens,” says Hirshberg.

The acid in vinegar is better. Meat tenderizer is another good bet.

If those aren’t available, you can use the edge of a credit card, or shaving cream and a razor, to scrape the invisible barbs out of the wound, says Hirshberg, but don’t use your bare hands or you’ll merely transfer the pain. Though some suggest that you rub the barbs out with sand, Hirshberg doesn’t recommend it, because you risk introducing foreign matter into the wound. Once all the nematocysts are out, apply a cold pack to reduce swelling, or take an antihistamine such as Benedryl. If properly treated, the discomfort usually lessens within several hours, says Hirshberg. So don’t worry.
    
What is to be done?   

If you must encounter jellies, you will, without a doubt, be happier getting acquainted from behind glass. The New England Aquarium’s exhibit, Amazing Jellies, funded by the National Science Foundation, is worth a trip to Boston. “For the past 25 years,” says a notice at the exhibit, “jellies have been increasing in number around the world and it is becoming clear that humans have played a pivotal role in their rise.” Some biologists think that overfishing of competitors has caused jellyfish numbers to increase. They also point to a change in ocean temperature and current, perhaps a result of global warming caused by man.

Other scientists believe the population changes are more affected by natural shifts of climate, current, and food supply. But jellyfish comings and goings remain largely a mystery. In the Bering Sea, for instance, the jellyfish population grew tenfold during the 1990s, closing down many of the fisheries. Then in the past few years the numbers dropped dramatically for unknown reasons.

 “Most jellies are opportunistic,” says Larry Madin of Woods Hole. “Their bodies are gelatinous, made up of ninety-five percent water, so they can grow rapidly without taking in a lot of nutrition. Since they get food with their tentacles, they don’t have to spend excessive energy chasing after it. They eat small animal planktons, crustaceans, larvae, and juvenile fish. They’re efficient creatures. Each one can produce dozens or hundreds of little jellies, and if the conditions are right, they can have an extremely rapid increase of population. They’ve been around a very long time and have been very successful.”

In other words, they’re the cockroaches of the sea?  

“Well, yeah,” says Madin. “Only better looking. In the water, they’re elegant and fascinating creatures.”

Fascinating or not, Australians want nothing to do with the deadly box jelly. They drag beaches for it and put up stinger nets. In Iran, fishery officials have proposed introducing one kind of comb jelly to cannibalize another kind that competes with fish stocks. But at this point, no one’s figured out how to control jellyfish populations without upsetting the delicate balance of the sea. They continue to come and go like marauding bands of teenagers who can’t be rubbed the wrong way. We’d best learn to love them, or at the very least learn to live with them.

What are they good for?

As naturalist Gus Ben David always says, good and bad are human terms with no bearing on the natural world. But if you persist in wondering what they’re good for, the answer would have to be: lunch.

Edgartown harbor master Charlie Blair once saw a sea turtle off the Florida coast eating a couple of
men-of-war and found it a memorable event. “The turtle was eating that man-of-war like candy,” says Blair, “with the tentacles hung over his eyes and head as he ate him. He didn’t seem to care if he got stung ­– or maybe turtles don’t get stung. I don’t know. I couldn’t ask him.”

Other larger fish and a few human cultures find jellyfish just as savory. In China and Japan the mushroom jelly – both fresh and pickled – is considered a delicacy. In northern Vietnam, one pound of dried, crunchy jellyfish is added to cucumber salad to create a classic dish, nom sua. If you find that hard to stomach, keep in mind the words of Laurence Mound, from the introduction to Why Not Eat Insects: “From black pudding to pickled jellyfish, beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. What we see and taste as beautiful depends largely on what our family and friends approve of – with just a little room for personal preference.”

Apart from eating jellyfish, the most fun seems to be had by children at the beach flinging comb jellies like water balloons. Comb jellies are the snowballs of summertime. The clear, palm-sized, jelly-like creatures are harmless and even charming. At night they flicker on the surf. Their luminescence has made them darlings of medical research. Four decades ago Osamu Shimomura, who later joined the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, discovered a light-emitting protein in jellyfish. By harnessing that glow, scientists have since been able to track the movement of calcium within cells and make other biomedical breakthroughs, not to mention glow-in-the-dark aquarium fish.

Still, there is nothing like seeing them flickering in Island waters like stars in the sea. Suzan Bellincampi, who leads moonlight paddle and kayak tours for the Trustees, loves to see them glitter as they bump along the boats. Better yet, she loves watching them glow against her skin. “Comb jellies are the best thing about moonlight swims,” says Suzan. “They float off my body and turn all silver sparkly. Not many animals can make light. In a word, they’re magical. They’re one of those Island things that makes you realize we live in paradise.”

And what’s not to love about that?