The experts didn’t know what to make of an unfamiliar jellyfish recently observed on the North Shore.

The shellfish specialist I asked, who comes in contact with a lot of marine invertebrates, wasn’t acquainted with this species, and became as excited as I was about an unfamiliar find. She simply enthused: “That’s so neat,” and added that she and her colleagues have heard of a lot of southern species showing up in the fall.

Rick Karney, a longtime observer of pond and ocean critters, admitted that it was not a jellyfish he had ever seen here either. He quipped, perhaps this southerner: “came north with the pelican” that was recently observed in Menemsha.

The shellfish guy admitted that he’s “not particularly good with gelatinous invertebrates,” and advised that “your guess is much better than mine.”

I can’t take credit for finding it or determining its identity, either. It was Merrielle MacLeod and her crew of “mini-scientists in training” that led the curiosity charge. These intrepid explorers can take pride in the discovery and identification of the gelatinous glob.

The kids, West Tisbury third grader Beatrix Houghton and Chilmark second grader Reid MacLeod, knew it was something different and, with Merrielle’s help, identified the mystery mass as a box jellyfish, commonly called a sea wasp.

The animal ticked all the right boxes for that species. It was the correct size, shape and description. It had four curious “feet” that differentiated it from the Island’s more often seen varieties.

The sea wasp, however, is rarely observed this far north.

A more tropical species, sea wasps are most populous off the coast of Brazil and range north to the southern states of the eastern seaboard. Only a few recent occasional sightings have been documented in the northeast US, with one in New Jersey in 2014 and another in Connecticut around 2021. 

Sea wasps, Tamoya haplonema, are so named because of their venomous sting. Their tentacles are equipped with nematocysts that have coiled barbs which emerge from those appendages and sting both prey and predators. 

While the sting is serious and painful, it is generally not fatal, though a cousin of this species from Australia is known to have a fatal sting.  So, touching any box jellyfish in not recommended, even if it is dead, as the stinging cells can still emerge and do damage.

While most jellyfish are planktonic, or free-floating, sea wasps are strong enough to swim on their own accord (and against the current) when in pursuit of prey. Box jellyfish can also see, using their up to 24 eyes that are arranged in clusters around their bell-shaped body, to navigate and avoid stationary structures.

This jellyfish, rarely part of our local ocean fauna, might have been brought here by the jet stream or currents. Climate change and warmer waters might just open Pandora’s box and make these and other southern species more prevalent in our area.

A short-lived species, this animal won’t live to one year old, so it was a lucky chance that this sea wasp was documented on an Island beach. But really, it was not only luck. Credit those kids for knowing that they had something special in their sights, and were able to think outside the box to identify it.

Suzan Bellincampi is director of the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary in Edgartown, and author of Martha’s Vineyard: A Field Guide to Island Nature and The Nature of Martha’s Vineyard.