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takyon writes:

Sea lice have been blamed (warning: images of bloody legs/feet) for an attack on a teen in Melbourne, Australia:

Locals have got back in the water at a Melbourne beach where a teen was left bleeding profusely from both legs, questioning the theory that sea lice might be to blame. Sam Kanizay, 16, emerged from the water at Dendy Street Beach in Brighton, in Melbourne's southeast, on Saturday covered in what his family said were tiny marine creatures eating his legs. Doctors later struggled to stem the bleeding from scores of what looked like tiny pink-prick bites. His father has since posted a sickening video of the creatures — scooped out of the water with a net and believed to be sea lice — feasting on chunks of raw meat.

[...] Associate Professor at Monash University's School of Biological Sciences Richard Reina, however, was confident Sam's bites were caused by sea lice. "I think it's very rare," Mr Reina told news.com.au. "When it happens you brush it off, or move, or get out of the water and there's no consequence, whereas in this case, Sam was standing in cold water for quite a long time. He probably thought the pins and needles he described was the cold and didn't realise there were crustaceans chewing on his feet."

Meanwhile, others blamed amphipods and even jellyfish larvae:

Jeff Weir, executive director of the Dolphin Research Institute, believes the teen may have been attacked by crustaceans called amphipods, which usually eat decomposing plant and animal scraps. But Thomas Cribb, a parasite expert from the University of Queensland, said it would be very unusual for amphipods to cause such extensive bleeding. "It's not a parasite I've ever come across," he said. Meanwhile, marine expert Michael Brown believes the small bugs eating the meat in the video could be jellyfish larvae.

Marine biologist Genefor Walker-Smith identified samples as lysianassid amphipods. Here's a disturbing video of them swarming on meat.

Australia: unsafe at any sea level.

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