The Irukandji jellyfish: Hunting one of the most dangerous creatures on Earth | 60 Minutes Australia

it's tiny almost invisible one of the most dangerous creatures on earth just wait till you see the havoc it causes and this little monster is one of ours a jellyfish called irikanji that spends the summer months in the warm tropical waters up north now if that word irikanji means nothing to you you're not alone not only is this the most venomous aussie of them all it's one of those great scientific mysteries it's also one of our best kept secrets hardly a tourist attraction and certainly not the kind that the tourist industry wants to see on national television um we've actually have my eyes killing me both my arms therese corette is going through unbelievable pain oh it's just because he ways pain beyond the reach of any drug she's been poisoned by australia's least known but most venomous creature [Music] my face i just love this skin it's driving us it's the irrikanji jellyfish so small it's almost invisible but within its tail a toxin that can kill it's incredibly powerful what it does to the human body is unbelievable to somebody watching it you just can't imagine that the body can survive going through that irikanji were first discovered in australia's tropical north more than 50 years ago but remarkably it's only now that their deadly potential is being understood they're tiny about the size of a fingernail and they're equipped with a lethal sting [Music] i don't think that he even saw what hit him i mean they're so small and they're almost invisible in the water it was easter sunday two years ago and american businessman robert king was fulfilling a lifelong dream snorkeling on the great barrier reef [Music] but within minutes of jumping into the waters off opal reef he was stung by an irikanji [Music] in incredible pain robert was rushed to townsville hospital his blood pressure so high that he suffered a brain hemorrhage by the time his partner michelle carlson arrived in australia robert was in a coma michelle spent the next two weeks by his side but robert never regained consciousness by 1 30 they had done the last cat scan they did and mri and his brain had stopped functioning [Music] i didn't want that that death to go in vain i wanted um i wanted it to stand for something i didn't think that more people should die from a jellyfish that nobody knew about robert king was the second confirmed death from iraqanji poisoning in australia but scientists believe the real figure is higher this after all is one of the world's most toxic species you got your range of nasties you've got your spiders and snakes and your your death adders and your taipans and your funnel webs and all these nasties and the box jelly is at the top of the heap of the nasties it's incredibly incredibly venomous the irikanji it's way up there it's so far up above it kicks the box jelly's butt marine biologist lisa gershwin has been studying the urakanji for the past six years they have well-developed eyes with lenses and retinas and corneas and we know experimentally that they can see but they have no brain and that just blows my mind i don't understand how they do that but i'm fascinated by it because we know so little about the urakanji lisa fears cases of death or injury are going undiagnosed it mimics a heart attack it mimics maybe a stroke it mimics all kinds of things and it doesn't leave a mark on the body so the chances for diagnosing an irikenji related death are very slim i think we all do recognize that it's very likely there have been more deaths that have been put down to heart attacks strokes absolutely absolutely or drowning yeah absolutely the problem that we've got with ira kanji syndrome is that there's probably at least half a dozen species of animal that can cause it we don't even know what they are yet and we don't know how similar their venoms are so the question is what do you actually create your antivenom too dr paul cullen is a trauma specialist based in cairns he says just as scientists struggle to understand the urakanji doctors find it very difficult to treat its victims i have many memories of people coming in in severe pain and greatly distressed and i think that's that's the image that sticks in your mind and it's pain that it's very difficult to control how many victims do you treat a year that's one of the very interesting things about it it varies a lot and it ranges from about 30 up to a peak of 120 or almost 120 which is what we saw a couple of years ago which is the worst ever season that we've seen from broome to bundaberg they inhabit the seductive waters of our tropical north australia's tourist playground brings in big money and that makes the eurokanji a very sensitive issue don't touch me with netting offering little protection lifeguards regularly sweep some of our most popular beaches there's a whole bunch in there there's more than that closing them in the middle of summer sometimes for weeks at a time amazing something that small will make you sick in the few days that i've been up here so many people have told me that i have more chance of being killed in a car crash heading to the beach than i do by an ira kanji now that's absolutely true but this is more than a debate about public health it's about money big money authorities estimate that after the two confirmed deaths tourism in far north queensland lost 65 million dollars little wonder then that stingers are such a touchy subject we've been down here working on the beaches filming and also doing research on them and had local tourist operators owners of apartments and stuff like that come down and physically abuse us for you know you guys are scaring tourists away from it get out of here you know go somewhere else richard fitzpatrick has faced more than the hostility of local tourist operators he's a scientist and while researching the jellyfish richard has felt the pain of an erikanji sting to me the symptoms i had was like a cricket bat bashing against your back against the kidneys constantly and then having a hot knife randomly jabbed throughout your body richard fitzpatrick was lucky he recovered quickly but not so his colleagues jamie seymour and terese correct the only placement body that was uncovered was just ram and lips out for the side just to duck dive from the surface and caught one right across the top right across the face through here they too were scientists at the forefront of irikanji research in australia face striving us bands starting to come back again overall pain know all the dangers they take all the precautions but even the professionals get stuck richard was there to film them as they struggled to cope with the yurakanji toxin you know watching jamie teresa in hospital that night was just absolutely frightening i mean jamie was bad with teresa was really bad and you know that pumped her full of morphine as much as she could possibly handle and um and like the pain just wasn't dropping it just wasn't taking the edge off the pain and i mean that was almost it was over 24 hours almost 48 hours she was like that and like it was really frightening because you got the doctors there and everyone's got no one knew what to do and the politics surrounding urakanji can be just as poisonous as it sting jamie seymour agreed to speak to 60 minutes but at the last minute he pulled out saying the issue was so sensitive that talking could cost him scarce research dollars and possibly his job are you frightened of these little creatures i am i i respect them very much lisa gershwin has offered to take me on one of her research trips and show me where the urakanji jellyfish lives we just have to make sure that every possible place that an eric angie can possibly get in contact with your skin is sealed up all it takes is just a touch of venom and it makes you bloody sick and as we know it can kill this pest is at its worst when the weather is at its best clear skies smooth seas are like northerly breeze conditions that scientists say draw the eurokanji closer to the coast [Music] how many euro candies do you think are out there uh there's at least seven that i'm confident are irrikenji producing species um of those this one curriculu barnsai is the only one that's currently named and classified these other six we know nothing about them they don't even have names yet back in her townsville lab lisa is now building a collection of irikanji slowly piecing together vital information it's expensive work that attracts little funding but she's being helped by an unlikely donor michelle carlson the partner of robert king [Music] i wanted to raise money so so that i could support that research so that more people wouldn't be killed you know that more people wouldn't die lisa gershwin believes she's discovered the particular species of irikanji that killed robert the way that we came to that conclusion was in matching up the stinging cells that were retrieved from bob's clothing but more important for michelle is the knowledge that his death helped save others bob was an organ donor and so he actually saved for four lives um here in australia and you know to me he's a hero to me even in his death he was still caring about people in his memory michelle carlson has given more than fifteen thousand dollars to researching the irikanji a not insignificant amount considering that australia's total research funding for this deadly jellyfish is just half a million dollars and that say the people who know best is simply not good enough it's not about banging drums for more money it's about protecting people from dying it's about protecting people from suffering uh the pain and the illness that comes with it that's really terrible we don't know anything about their ecology we don't know anything about their venoms that we don't know how they reproduce we don't know anything about them do you subscribe to this argument that yes there's only been two documented deaths from irukandji syndrome but have there been more that have been put down to other causes i believe there have been more i think most of us working with ira kanjis do believe there have been more denying it isn't going to change the fact irikanji is real eric kanji can kill people we've got to get it right and we've got to get it right soon hello i'm tom steinfert thanks for watching 60 minutes australia subscribe to our channel now for brand new stories and exclusive clips every week and don't miss out on our extra minute segments and full episodes of 60 minutes on ninenow.com.eu as well as the nine now app

Channel: 60 Minutes Australia

Views: 4,398,004

Keywords: 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes Australia, Liz Hayes, Tara Brown, Liam Bartlett, Tom Steinfort, Sarah Abo, karl stefanovic, 60Mins, #60Mins, jellyfish, animal, deadly, venomous, great barrier reef, dangerous, fish, ocean, sea, irukandji, box jellyfish, australia, snorkelling, scuba

Id: prEwJDsfWMo

Length: 13min 27sec (807 seconds)

Published: Thu May 05 2022