Queensland

'Never been this many': plague of jellyfish invade beach

No, that's not high tide, but a plague of jellyfish beached at Deception Bay north of Brisbane.

Local Charlotte Lawson, who took the pictures on Sunday, said she's never seen that many jellyfish on the beach.

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Jellyfish beach 'creepy'

Hundreds of jellyfish wash up on a beach at Deception Bay, north of Brisbane.

"It happens every year but there's never been this many, this year it's been heaps," Ms Lawson said.

"There was only a metre of sand between the jellyfish and the concrete," she said, estimating the jellyfish carpet was between four to six metres wide.

"There was so many of them, it looked pretty cool - it looked like bubble wrap across the beach."

Ms Lawson said the jellyfish plague normally lasts about a week, but this year's lot could last a bit longer.

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"As the tide comes in they disappear but when the tide goes back out they're there," she said.

"They're already starting to smell."

The jellyfish are catostylus mosaicus - better known as blue blubber jellyfish - a type of mildly venomous marine stinger that often wash up on beaches in large numbers.

While the blubber jellyfish won't cause swimmers any major pain, they can still hurt - if stung, Surf Live Saving Queensland recommends having a hot shower to treat any marine sting in south-east Queensland. 

The blubber jellyfish sting is not nearly as painful as another common jellyfish, the bluebottle.

About 22,800 swimmers at Sunshine Coast beaches were treated for bluebottle jellyfish stings, according to Surf Life Saving Queensland numbers from December 1 to January 31.

In the same period 5,500 people were treated by SLSQ for bluebottle stings on the Gold Coast, however those figures only cover weekends when the beaches are patrolled.

Since late December, there have also been 10 suspected irukandji stings on Fraser Island alone.

The latest incident occurred when a teenage girl was airlifted to hospital on January 4 after suffering a sting to her leg.

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