The Sting of the Mauves

Many Mauve Stingers, a type of jellyfish, have been spotted in the Irish Sea. They have an extremely painful sting.

The species recently wiped out £1 million worth of salmon in Northern Ireland. They are the right size to get through the mesh being in between the sizes of a ten pence coin and a clenched fist.

It's best to see them in the dark because their wasp-like sting glows.

"The trouble is that we know so little about these jellyfish," said Dr. Houghton.

"Until recently, they were viewed as bags of water that had little or no impact on our ecosystem.

"Now we need to learn, very quickly, about their behaviour and about their breeding patterns in our waters.

"We need to get some basic data about numbers, and the easiest and quickest way to do that is simply to send researchers out on the ferries.

"For the past few weeks, they have been standing on deck looking at the sea and counting jellyfish. That is how we are getting a baseline figure for their numbers."

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