[escudo]

Ref: my post of July 28th, 2005 (escudo)

I just viewed another documentary on Box jellies and Irukanji/Irukandji, and learned that the smaller cousin to the Box jelly, while about 50 times smaller, is 300 times more venomous.

In addition, instead of injecting the toxins from over the entire surface of the injection barb, the Irukanji's venom is injected like a hypodermic...from the very tip. This suggests to me there is no chance for some of the venom to be depleted in surface clothing. If it penetrates the skin, it is ALL injected into the victim.

This 300:1 toxicity ratio may be offset by some tradeoffs between injector size, number of stingers per tentacle, toxin capacity per stinger, etc., but at the very least it demonstrates the leveraged danger of the smaller jelly and the difficulties of creating universal anti-venins.

(documentary featured Dr. Jamie Seymour, Digital Dimensions Production)