Gershwin Lisa-Ann, Dawes Peter
School of Marine & Tropical Biology, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland 4810, Australia.
Biol Bull. 2008 Aug;215(1):57-62. doi: 10.2307/25470683.
Cubozoans are well known for their attraction to light and light-colored objects. Two highly venomous types are a public safety concern in Australian waters and elsewhere: Chironex fleckeri, long considered the world's deadliest animal and colloquially called the box jellyfish; and the irukandjis, a group of at least 10 species that cause various degrees of debilitating illness. We were asked by the tourism industry whether there might be a color of light that box jellyfish and irukandjis are not attracted to, such that nighttime diving activities might pose less risk of being stung. Our preliminary trials with Chironex fleckeri indicated a marked positive response to lights of white, red, yellow, green, orange, and blue. All colors elicited a strong and directed attraction to light; however, medusae slowed down their pulsation rate, streamed out their tentacles, and performed a series of figure-eight patterns back and forth through the lighted area when exposed to blue light, which we interpreted as feeding behavior. This compares curiously with a report subsequent to our testing, in which the small, mangrove-inhabiting cubomedusa Tripedalia cystophora and the beach-dwelling Chiropsella bronzie demonstrate a peak sensitivity to blue-green light in the region of 500 nm, and that the former is behaviorally attracted to blue and green light, but ignores red. This leaves open the possibility that Irukandji species, which are more closely related to Tripedalia than to Chironex, may be blind to red.
立方水母以其对光和浅色物体的吸引力而闻名。两种剧毒类型在澳大利亚海域和其他地方引起了公共安全担忧：长期以来被认为是世界上最致命动物且俗称箱形水母的曳手水母；以及伊鲁坎吉水母，这是一组至少10种会导致不同程度使人衰弱疾病的水母。旅游业询问我们是否存在箱形水母和伊鲁坎吉水母不被吸引的光的颜色，这样夜间潜水活动被蜇伤的风险可能会更低。我们对曳手水母进行的初步试验表明，它对白色、红色、黄色、绿色、橙色和蓝色的光有明显的阳性反应。所有颜色的光都引发了强烈且有方向性的吸引；然而，当暴露在蓝光下时，水母会减慢其脉动速率，伸出触手，并在光照区域来回做出一系列8字形动作，我们将此解释为进食行为。这与我们测试之后的一份报告形成了奇怪的对比，在那份报告中，栖息在红树林中的小型立方水母——多手曳水母和栖息在海滩的青铜多手水母在500纳米区域对蓝绿光表现出峰值敏感性，并且前者在行为上被蓝光和绿光吸引，但对红光无反应。这使得与多手曳水母的亲缘关系比与曳手水母更近的伊鲁坎吉水母种类可能对红光无反应成为一种可能性。
