A teenager in Australia soaking his legs in the ocean stepped out to find them covered in blood after a being bitten by marine critters. Scientists were quick to blame suspect the attack on a swarm of sea lice, but experts say the creatures the victim’s father found were not sea lice.
The attack happened while Sam Kanizay, 16, soaked his feet in the water a Melbourne beach for about 30 minutes. While Kanizay was in the hospital recuperating from tiny incisions around his calfs and ankles, his father returned to the beach with a chunk of meat and took a sample of some of the creatures that munched on his son, according to The Guardian.
Swarming sea lice, or marine isopods, are the leading theory for the mysterious attack, but if it were this would be a dramatic example. According to Time, sea lice typically leave a rash when they bite humans—not tiny wounds.
It’s not clear if Kanizay’s father actually captured the creatures responsible for snacking on his son. The New York Times reports the critters displayed in a video posted online by his father are amphipods, not sea lice, and they’re not known to bite humans.
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