Meat sucking sea parasites fed on Australian teen's lower legs

Sam Kanizay was playing beach football when he decided to relax his aching muscles by dipping his lower legs in the known beach front of Brighton Dendy Street. Before he knew it, he felt a thousand needles puncturing his lower legs. Kanizay, 16, immediately pulled up his legs a ran towards the sandy beach hoping that the needle pricking sensation would go away.

Is must be the sand that is gnawing the flesh in his lower legs

Sam tried to shake off the dirt at first thinking that this must be the cause of a thousand needles pricking his feet again and again. But when he started violently shaking his legs, the sand covering the skin fell off exposing the open wounds that had been causing the pain all along.The punctures look like a thousand needles pricking the skin repeatedly. It was a bloody mess.

Sam called his father for help and immediately, his dad took the teen to the hospital. Fortunately, the sea lice were not poisonous. The medical staff found thousands of tiny pin like wounds in the boy's body, reports CNN.

Curious father went back to the waters to investigate

Kanizay's father, Jarrod cannot believe how his boy got those strange injuries. He went back to the waters with the intent of capturing the sea creatures that inflicted such harm to his kid. Armed with a pool net with lots of fresh meat, Jarrod threw the meat into the waters.

No one knows what these parasites would look. Jarrod soon noticed that the flesh he threw had tiny sea creatures chomping and sticking on the meat bait. He took a video and brought the blood sucking parasites, whose fangs embedded in the flesh, to experts for analysis.

Experts say the blood suckers are crustacean parasites

Jeff Weir from the Dolphin Research Institute identified the creatures as tiny crustacean amphipods that embed themselves in decaying marine plants and animals to aid their breakdown.

Weir adds that these blood suckers are there not to eat people but would sometimes nibble if given the opportunity like leeches or fleas.

According to Parasite Expert Thomas Cribb of the University of Queensland, it is sporadic that the tiny blood sucking Sea Parasites could cause such bloody injury. Amphipods usually do not cause a deadly wound. He believes that this is not a typical crustacean parasite, reports Fox News.

Michael Brown, a marine expert, says that the little flesh eating parasites could be jellyfish larvae, judging from what he saw on Jarrod's video. An unusual occurrence in his field and the first time he saw such thing happen.