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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, August 1, 2005

Stingers in sea hard to pinpoint

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Columnist

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Q. As I type, my inner left arm is covered in rashes and welts after being repeatedly stung while snorkeling 400 yards off Ho'okena Beach (Big Island). I looked carefully in the water around me as I was stung and could only see these very tiny, orange-colored organisms that appeared to have minute spines or points. The whole organism was only about 1/16 of an inch across. I have been stung like this one other time, though less severely, while snorkeling off the Mahukona Harbor. Your recent articles on the Ke'ehi Lagoon have been the only source I have found that matches my stings.

— Leigh Hilbert, Kapoho, Hawai'i

A. As in the Ke'ehi case, it's almost impossible to establish the cause of an ocean sting without identification of the organism responsible. In the Ke'ehi case, scientists scooped up hundreds of tiny jellyfishlike creatures and identified them as stinging hydromedusae.

Could the same organisms be present at Ho'okena? Maybe, but if what stung you was the orange-colored creatures, then they are a different type of organism.

Possible stingers in Hawaiian waters are legion.

University of Hawai'i botany professor Celia Smith and zoology professor Julie Brock, queried about possible suspects, said small, stinging animals in Hawaiian waters include forms of cnidarians, a broad classification of marine animals. They can include jellyfish, Portuguese man-of-war, reef-building and other corals, sea anemones, black corals and hydroids.

Hydroids are the ones that were responsible in Ke'ehi. In one stage of their existence, they live like seaweed, attached to the sea bottom, but in another they break free and float in the water as microscopic jellyfish. "We have about 26 species (of hydroid) in Hawai'i, and many have not been properly described," said Waikiki Aquarium curator Jerry Crow.

Certain sponges can cause severe skin reactions in some people. So can colonial marine animals called bryozoans, which can look like corals or algae. You could have brushed by one on the bottom, or bits of them can break free and sting as they drift.

Another troublesome particle is called Lyngbya majuscula, a blue-green alga or photosynthetic bacterium that can cause "swimmer's itch." It can be particularly annoying where it has rubbed between the skin and swimsuit, although it does not normally create the severe welts you describe.