12-year-old Tasmanian native Xavier Lim says she is "chuffed" after discovering a giant 1.5 metre wide jellyfish washed up on her local beach, delighted locals and scientists alike.
The jellyfish, which is roughly the size of a smart car, is a currently unnamed member of the Lion's Man jellyfish family and is among the biggest ever found in the area, according to the *deep breath* Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).
Lisa-ann Gershwin, of CSIRO, was quoted by The Guardian as saying: "There is a bigger species in the Arctic, and it gets about 3m across the body, so there are biggers species out there, but not in Australia. It’s new because its structural features are unlike other species, it just so happens that this one is huge … it’s the size of a Smart car."
It's pretty impressive as you can see in the picture below, even if it does just sort of look like the result of someone having a particularly bad chest infection.
Xavier Lim surveys her discovery. Photo: Getty
Apparently this is just the latest in a series of unusually large jellyfish discovered in the area which, after carefully studying a series of Godzilla movies, means that there has most likely been some sort of toxic spill in the area which will eventually culminate in a giant jellyfish sprouting legs and going on a tremendously cinematic rampage.*
Meanwhile, Lim rather adorably commented to ABC News about the beast, saying: "We were at the beach looking for shells and dad was like 'Whoa! Look at that' … I kind of touched it ... it was pretty cool."
*Tremendously cinematic rampage may not actually happen.
