Lion's Mane Jellyfish

This is the Lion's Mane jellyfish, Cyanea capillata, picture taken by The Diary from a kayak using an underwater camera. They have a reputation for a nasty sting, but some sources, such as this one, state that the sting can be innocuous for most people. By our standards, this was a fairly large specimen, the bell being about a foot across, but specimens have been reported which measured 8 feet across. It was found in one of the small bays along the Ormsaigbeg coast, and seemed to be trying to swim away from the shore.

Another one a short distance away was being washed up onto a shingle beach. It had been turned upside down to show a mass of brown tentacles, but it had lost the long, streaming tentacles that normally hang below it. These are typically white and a few feet in length - kayakers ship them on their paddles so they run down the shaft to sting their hands.

So far this year we've seen hardly any of the small, mauve jellyfish that are normally so common, and rather more of the Lion's Mane - in the short time we were out yesterday we saw four.

More details of the Lion's Mane here, and advice on how to deal with jellyfish stings is here.