Stinger Suit

Where "Stinger Suit" Comes From

The stinger suit is a full-body Lycra garment designed to protect swimmers from jellyfish stings — particularly the box jellyfish (Chironex fleckeri) and the Irukandji (Carukia barnesi), both found in the warm coastal waters of northern Australia. The garment was developed in the early 1980s through collaboration between researchers at James Cook University in Townsville and Townsville General Hospital. Before the stinger suit existed, two pairs of nylon pantyhose were the improvised protection of choice.

The stinger suit works because jellyfish trigger their stinging cells by detecting the chemical composition of skin, and the Lycra layer confounds that detection. The name is direct: "stinger" is the Australian term for any venomous jellyfish, and "suit" describes the full-body coverage. Stinger suits are now standard equipment at swimming enclosures, marine tourism operations, and school swimming programs across tropical Queensland and the Northern Territory — a piece of safety infrastructure that, in most of the world, has no equivalent simply because the threat has no equivalent.

Source:

• Wikipedia — “Jellyfish stings in Australia”