Marine stinger identification wanted

Launching at Bagnalls, Port Stephens, NSW, today, one metre off the shore where the weed starts, I stepped on something that felt somewhere between a jellyfish and a soft rubbery fish. I only felt/was aware of a few inches of it. A fraction of a second later I felt the sting, instantly followed by a moderate pain of the poison rather than puncture kind. The wound was about 1mm across, elongated. Sailed for 30 minutes, pain increased only slightly in that time, then I got out and pain increased to at its worst, a little this side of "unbearable". For the next few hours the pain varied a little for a few minutes at a time, for no apparent reason. Got home, put foot in hot water 4 hours after the sting, within seconds the pain became only mild. Took foot out when the water cooled and after about one minute the pain was the worst yet (so if this happens to you I suggest avoiding starting the hot water treatment unless you know you can keep it up for hours.) Another 3 hours of keeping the hot water up to it, after which I could go without the water with only mild pain. Another 5 hours and it's nearly normal.

Any ideas what the critter was?

It sounds just like a cobbler sting except:
I didn't think they were on the east coast, though Googling now suggests there may be a few?
With cobblers people need the water so hot they often burn themselves but I didn't even need it hot enough to be uncomfortable.

When I was in WA I was told that when you step on a cobbler it flips its tail up and over and stings you on the top of the foot, but my Googling said the stingers/spines are on their back so you just step on the stinger. Sounds like I was told wrongly?

Exactly the same thing happened to me at Valentine Lake Macquarie a couple of months ago.

Stood on something and just thought it was a shell, realised my foot was bleeding and the pain just built and built. After an hour or so my entire leg up to my knee was in agony.

A bit of googling and did the hot water trick, it helped but not completely.

Foot only stopped hurting the next day, but I was still limping for a week.

Only thing I thought it could be was a bull rout, but no idea if thats the case.

The sting was on the side of my foot, on the inside.

Yes I wondered about a stingray but think I would probably have felt something that large move away.

Regarding why hot water works, people say it denatures the enzyme but there are problems with that idea. Another idea is that the pain of the heat overwhelms the pain of the sting but that also seems wrong because even just warm water helped me, and it was never uncomfortably hot. Though I can imagine that helps somewhat with cobblers since the water is so hot it burns, although I presume they get burnt because they're not feeling the heat so maybe not ...

Other clues:
It swelled slight/moderate for one inch around the sting.
The pain only extended a few inches from the sting and that area was mildly swollen.
I did a few tests on it - elevating the leg made it more painful, and so did cold tap water.

My old book "Dangerous MArine Animals of the Indo-PAcific region" by Carl Edmonds would have the answer in it.

Things like bull-rout etc, I think will give stings like this.
Similar to a stone-fish, but much less severity.

Don't have it with me.

I was told that hot water breaks down the protein in the venom. The quicker you do it the better, the longer you leave it the less effective the treatment, if you leave it too long you going to be sore for a while...

I got stung by a weaver fish last summer, in the UK, which requires the same treatment, did not hurt at all at first, wasn't sure what the fuss was all about... until 20min later.

The commonly quoted explanation is that the protein is denatured by heat i.e. scrambled like the egg. Once in this form, the protein's properties change, so that it may no longer act as a "poison" to cause pain.

Proteins from marine creatures are thought to denature at lower temperature than the human proteins in your foot.

The problem with this explanation is that it doesn't explain the common phenomenon that the pain returns as soon as you take the foot out of the water. Once the protein is denatured, it cannot change back to its original shape (just like you can't turn the egg into liquid again after you have scrambled it).

There is no doubt that hot water (45 deg C) is effective first aid treatment for penetrating marine envenomation such as catfish (cobblers), stonefish, sea urchins, sting rays bullrout, scorpionfish lionfish etc. The explanation of why it works however is still a bit of a mystery. There is also an antivenom for stonefish.

Always remember to put the other foot in the hot water as well to make sure that it's not that hot that you burn yourself.
If it's still really sore despite the hot water then see a doctor who can inject local anaesthetic around your ankle to numb the foot. Make sure that there are no broken off bits as they often cause infection.


I stood on something stingy at Lancelin a couple of weeks ago. The pain was only really bad for an hour or so and eased off even before I could get to hot water. It was still a bit sore to walk on for a week though. Not really sure what it was. Cobblers are quite common there but the pain usually lasts for longer.


Stingrays don't sting underneath your foot. The bony spur that stings is in the tail which they flip up and hit you in the leg with. I've stood on quite a few rays and been lucky. It's pretty obvious if it's a stingray. It feels like a moving carpet under your foot as it takes off.

Cobbler spines are on its back and head.

I must be bored on a Friday night typing all this.

www.ausfish.com.au/vforum/archive/index.php/t-79024.html


red rock cod.

They are both, live in brackish water but often washed down further. & yer not the most attractive fish. We used to regularly catch them in nets.

When I was growing up some kid died from stepping on one, think it was up round the top of the noosa river.

I suspect alot of stings that treated as stonefish in emergency departments are from bullrouts- they are alot more common.

Close, but contains a few errors.
A protein depends on it's shape to be active. The shape is determined by the polypeptide sequence.
When a protein is denatured by heat or a few other things, it loses it's shape, and becomes inactive. If it returns to normal temperature, it regains it's shape, if the sequence is intact, which accounts for the return of pain.
Denaturing is not like scrambling an egg.

holgs said...

The commonly quoted explanation is that the protein is denatured by heat i.e. scrambled like the egg. Once in this form, the protein's properties change, so that it may no longer act as a "poison" to cause pain.

Proteins from marine creatures are thought to denature at lower temperature than the human proteins in your foot.

The problem with this explanation is that it doesn't explain the common phenomenon that the pain returns as soon as you take the foot out of the water. Once the protein is denatured, it cannot change back to its original shape (just like you can't turn the egg into liquid again after you have scrambled it).

There is no doubt that hot water (45 deg C) is effective first aid treatment for penetrating marine envenomation such as catfish (cobblers), stonefish, sea urchins, sting rays bullrout, scorpionfish lionfish etc. The explanation of why it works however is still a bit of a mystery. There is also an antivenom for stonefish.

Always remember to put the other foot in the hot water as well to make sure that it's not that hot that you burn yourself.
If it's still really sore despite the hot water then see a doctor who can inject local anaesthetic around your ankle to numb the foot. Make sure that there are no broken off bits as they often cause infection.


I stood on something stingy at Lancelin a couple of weeks ago. The pain was only really bad for an hour or so and eased off even before I could get to hot water. It was still a bit sore to walk on for a week though. Not really sure what it was. Cobblers are quite common there but the pain usually lasts for longer.


Stingrays don't sting underneath your foot. The bony spur that stings is in the tail which they flip up and hit you in the leg with. I've stood on quite a few rays and been lucky. It's pretty obvious if it's a stingray. It feels like a moving carpet under your foot as it takes off.

Cobbler spines are on its back and head.

I must be bored on a Friday night typing all this.