Original subtitles

Mark?

Whats wrong?

Are you ready to see an alien?

What are you talking about?

Yahhh!

Like clockwork, it's

a guarantee that twice a day the tide will rise

and the tide will fall.

As it proceeds, we have all learned

that an incredible world of underwater marine animals

become temporarily exposed allowing any curious adventurer

the opportunity to find and admire

all sorts of bizarre creatures.

In Harpswell, Maine, we came across one animal

that we have been hoping to feature on "Beyond the Tide"

since the series launched.

But before we get to that alien-looking water beast,

let's take a look at something that is

going to make your skin crawl.

Dude, Mark, come here.

Check this out.

What is it?

Dude, this grass is, like, full of little tiny fleas.

Whoa.

Or something jumping.

Look at that.

Whoa.

I'm standing-- oh, jeez.

Look at that!

Listen.

Do you hear that?

That's like popcorn.

It sounds like rain.

I think those are sand fleas.

Let me grab one.

Do they bite?

Uhh, I believe so.

All fleas, as far as I know, bite.

I can't grab one.

They're too small and fast.

Jeez, they're jumping all over me!

Here.

Come over here, look at this.

Let me check this grass.

This might be better.

Point your camera down right here.

This is the exact same sort of seaweed--

dried up seaweed-- oh, see, look at that.

I just step on them and they're everywhere.

Watch. Ready?

Yep.

One, two-- oh, my gosh!

What?

Look at that!

Put your hand in there. What?

Put my hand in there? Yeah.

All right. Here.

Let me-- let me peel back some more.

Ooh-ee!

Ah!

What's that like?

Ah!

That feels really weird.

But they're not biting me.

They're just jumping on me.

Here, let me peel back this a little bit more.

Look at that!

They're, like, millions of them.

Oh, my gosh.

That is crazy.

Whoa.

Got one. You did?

Look. Look.

Look.

Right there.

Can you see it's little head sticking out?

I believe that's a sand flea.

Whoa.

That is creepy.

All right.

Note to self, don't lay on this beach.

I'm just going to disperse some of the seaweed back out

and cover up the sand flea city.

I have never seen anything like that.

Millions upon millions of sand fleas.

All right, let's head this way down the coastline

and see what else we can find.

We continue down the coastline,

we soon realized it was unlike any low tide scenario

we had explored before.

I carefully examine potential hiding spots

where animals may be waiting for the tide to return.

But so far, aside from thousands of fleas,

I wasn't seeing a single living creature.

The sun was getting low in the sky when

all of a sudden, our luck took the perfect turn

and put us right in the midst of an animal

we had always hoped to get up close for the cameras.

Oh, it's a turtle!

Oh, no!

It's a horseshoe crab!

What?

Look at this!

Is it alive? - Oh, it is alive!

Look at that!

Yes, we've been looking for one of those!

Wow! I thought that was a turtle!

Oh, my gosh!

I just saw the lump and I thought it was a carapace.

All right, let's do this.

I'm going to gently lift it up out of the grasses here.

Let's see.

Oh, it's strong!

Look at that.

Wow. What an alien.

Look at it's tail going.

Here, back a little bit so I'm not sitting in the water.

Whoa, look at that!

Oh, my goodness.

That is a horseshoe crab.

What a bizarre looking creature.

That may be thinking, Coyote, is that thing going to pinch

and bite you like crazy?

No, they actually just have a little tiny mouth

right in the center, and they have

no stinger, no fangs, no teeth.

Look at that back tail, there.

Now, they've gotten a bad reputation

because of this tail people think that that's venomous.

It actually is not.

Ow, ow, ow.

But the side little spikes there are

definitely very, very spiny.

Let me see if I can get it to just

lay in the palm of my hand.

Ooh!

That feels really, really creepy.

Now, it's called a horseshoe crab,

but it's not actually related to crabs at all.

It's more closely related to spiders and scorpions.

This is one large arthropod.

Now, wait-- ooh.

It is pinching me a little bit.

They do have these front pedipalps

up front that they use to harvest food

off of the basin of the ocean.

Wow, I am, like, so excited right now!

Hold on.

I got to compose myself because I

did not think we were going to come across a horseshoe crab

out here.

Now, if you look straight on, where it

gets the name horseshoe crab--

let me hold it like that.

Looks just like a horseshoe, right?

Totally.

And if you look right at the front of the face, there,

you see these little spots?

Those are compound eyes.

Actually, this animal has nine eyes in total.

The two right here; five light-sensing eyes

on top of its carapace; and then on the underside,

two simple eyes that they actually use to kind

of sense their environment.

And scientists think that the eyes on the underside

are actually just left over from when

they were in a larva stage.

So wait those are eyes on the top of that?

Yes, and actually looks like a face, doesn't it?

You see that?

I always thought that that was just like a helmet,

like a shell protection.

Well, the top of this animal is called the carapace.

Just like a lot of other arthropod species,

this is a very dense, very hard exoskeleton.

They don't actually have an endoskeleton-- you know, bones

and cartilage-- like a human.

But on the underside-- look at that-- looks just

like a scorpion or a spider.

Whoa.

Can I touch the top of it? - Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Just curious. - Totally safe.

Is it tough? - Yeah.

Oh, wow. - Yep, exoskeleton.

It's just like a turtle shell, actually.

Yeah, well, I thought it was a turtle when we first walked up.

And look, you've got some sort of a barnacle

growing up on top of it.

It's covered in a little bit of algae and seaweed.

Now, here's something that you may not know,

and something very cool-- let me turn it like this

and just hold it the palm of my hand.

That is me holding a living fossil.

The ancestors of the horseshoe crab had been on the planet

for over 450 million years.

And this species right here is the Atlantic horseshoe crab.

There's only four horseshoe crabs species in the world.

This is the only one that can be found off

the Coast of the United States.

And this one specifically, this design,

the Atlantic horseshoe crab, has not changed

in over 230 million years.

That dates back to the Triassic Period.

So this creature was crawling around

on the basin of the ocean during the time of the dinosaurs.

Whoa.

How cool is that?

Now, they do get quite a bit bigger than this.

And I'm guessing this is a female.

The females are about 25% larger than the males.

Wow, it's almost impossible to hold onto.

Look at the underside.

It does look like a stinger.

It does.

And that's why people are afraid of these things.

They think that they're going to get stung.

Look at this.

No.

This tail is actually just used like a rudder.

Although, it does have all these barbs.

It's very intimidating, but it cannot hurt you at all.

In fact, if a horseshoe crab gets flipped on its back

like that.

See, it tries to right itself up.

It actually can't.

And that's a big misnomer, that these arthropods

are capable of flipping themselves back over.

And there's actually a conservation

effort that was launched in the '80s called "Just Flip Them."

And the Just Flip Them concept is

that if you're walking down the beach

and you see a horseshoe crab that's flipped

on its back like this from, like,

a crashing of a wave, what you're supposed to do

is just gently grab the carapace and flip it right side up.

Now, you don't want to pick it up by its tail

because you can actually injure the animal

if you hold it like that.

Look out, Mark, it's coming right towards you.

Oh, man.

It's as big as my face is.

Whoa.

I do have to watch out for that tail though.

I don't want to get stabbed in the eye by it.

Well, how cool was this?

Coming across one of the most bizarre

creatures you can ever stumble upon in the tide pools--

the horseshoe crab.

I'm Coyote Peterson.

Be brave, stay wild.

We'll see on the next adventure!

All right.

Let's let her back off into the ocean.

Despite its angry appearance, intimidating

spiked tale, and creepy set of legs and pinchers,

the horseshoe crab is one of the friendliest marine animals

you can stumble upon.

If you see one in the wild, simply admire it

from a respectful distance.

If you see one flipped on its back,

have no fear when it comes to picking

the animal up and gently setting it back into the water.

Oh, wow.

I cannot believe you're about to do this.

I'm Coyote Peterson.

And I'm about to enter the spike zone with the lionfish.

One,

Two, here we go, three.

Oh, wow.

It's getting worse, guys.

Hey, let's get you home.

We are going to be snorkeling to get these lionfish.

There'll be in shallower water.

Now, they are located deeper and shallow.

I mean, they're all over the place from what I hear.

So we've got about six hours out on the water,

and hopefully in that amount of time,

we're going to come back with a lionfish.

All right.

Today, we are heading

off the Coast of Islamorada.

We will be searching for one of these invasive fish

with the ultimate goal of showing you

how to treat the effects of their painful sting, which

is often experienced by both fishermen and divers.

Native to the Indo-Pacific, these fish

were first reported off of Florida's Atlantic Coast

in 1985, and quickly began to spread up the Eastern seaboard.

With no natural predators besides humans,

the lionfish has become invasive enemy number one.

No one knows for sure how these fish were introduced

to the area, but their numbers have increased

rapidly over the last 30 years.

So finding one should not be that difficult.

All right, guys.

We've made it to our first dive site.

We are just off of the Florida Keys.

We've got the shore in the background,

and we're not too far out.

You can actually see the bottom of the ocean

just off the back of the boat, which

is perfect for snorkeling.

I'm going to trade in my adventure cowboy hat

for mask, a snorkel, and a dive suit.

We're going to head down there and try to catch

the notorious lionfish.

This is one of the most invasive species

out here in these waters.

And our captain tells us there's a 100% chance we're going

to catch one, which means for you guys,

I'm definitely going to be stung.

Oh, boy.

Here we go!

OK, we got one.

Get back out, I see it.

Yep.

It came back out from the coral.

It's just floating there.

All right, let's try to get it.

This was my moment.

Time to get the invader.

I held my breath and kicked hard.

Closing in on the fish, I scoop forward.

And after a little finesse of the net, I made the catch.

I did it!

I caught a lionfish.

Making sure to keep

the spines away from myself and the crew,

I swam toward the surface.

Got him!

We have it!

What a beauty!

Wow, it was making a run for it.

Did you see that? Yeah!

Oh, man.

Did you get that? That was awesome.

Wow. OK.

Well, stay back.

Stay back a little bit from me.

Uh, let's head back to the boat.

We got our fish.

Let's do it! - Woo-hoo!

That was awesome.

There it is ladies and gentlemen--

the lionfish. There it is.

Look out for that.

Here, I'll, uh--

Here, bring that up.

Yeah.

Look at that fish.

Beauty too.

Gorgeous.

Wow.

There you have it.

Look at those spines.

I would say that the stage is set for me

to be stung by the lionfish.

OK, let's get it into this bucket--

- and let's get back to shore.

Ha-how!

In case you were wondering,

this invasive fish will not be released back into the wild.

But instead will be donated to a research group

in South Florida.

OK.

I see a tank, we need a fish.

Here comes the fish.

Now, I'm going to just scoop it up with this spoon,

and plop him into the aquarium.

You ready? Yep.

Here he comes. One, two, three.

Woop.

There you go, buddy.

Wow.

You could see why people keep them in their aquariums.

Oh, they're absolutely gorgeous.

I mean, you can see why it's called a lionfish.

With those pectoral fins all spread out,

it almost looks like the mane of a lion.

Now, they're also known as red zebrafish.

As you can see, those red stripes kind of

make it look like a red zebra, many different names

for this fish.

But one thing and one thing only that we know,

is that this is an invasive species here in South Florida,

and they can give you a pretty nasty prick with those spines.

Now, let's look at some of the anatomy of this fish.

Wow.

First of all, those dorsal spines

that you see running along the top ridge of the fish--

all 13 of those are laced with venom.

The venom on these spines is actually in grooves that run

along the side of the spines.

And you can see those fleshy things

hanging off the side, right?

Yeah, what is that?

You see that?

These are actually sheaths that these spines are in.

So when the fish gets agitated, the spines

come through the fleshy sheathes and then the venom is exposed.

So whatever gets, you know, spined onto there

has the venom go into its system.

So those sheaths actually help put venom

on the spines too, right?

They do.

It kind of lubricates it with venom.

And then when the spine goes into your hand--

well, that's how the venom enters your body.

Now, there are a couple different methods that I

could use to go about being--

Yeah. Let's--

- spined here.

How are you going to do this?

This seems really precarious to me.

Well, the most dangerous thing, and the thing that

would be really unintelligent, would

be to actually put my hands in like this

and try to pick up the fish from the side.

The ventral spines are shorter and thicker,

and they will actually put more venom into me than I care

to have put into my body today.

The dorsal spines also will inflict a lot of venom,

but I want to replicate what oftentimes happens to divers

when they run into these fish, which is getting

spined by the dorsal ridge.

So I'm going to pick the fish up by its jaw,

it's not going to hurt it in any way whatsoever,

that dorsal ridge of spines is going to fan up

like that because it's going to feel threatened,

it's out of the water.

And I'm going to whack my hand down on top of those spines

and venom is going to go into my skin.

Well, you've gone through some stings and some bites.

How are you feeling about this particular experiment,

if you will?

Well, this will be my first marine stinging.

Technically it's not a sting, it's a stabbing or a barbing,

or a spiking.

Um, and I'm a little nervous because I

don't know how my body will react to marine life venom.

We do have an epinephrine pen with us, as always.

We're also back here in civilization.

So if anything goes extremely wrong--

if my body were to go into anaphylactic shock,

we do have local medical experts on call,

ready to receive me if something bad happens.

And you're good to go with this?

No, I'm sweating.

I'm nervous.

My heart is racing.

You can see the fish is completely calm right now.

Just there resting on the bottom of the--

Oh. Oh.

Ooh.

That's how you get it.

That scared me.

There's water all over your hat.

Yeah, how that'll make you jump.

Well, I thought I was going to get it from the ventral spines.

There are three large spines on the back that they'll flick

your tail and get you with.

He didn't get me there, which is good.

But I think we're getting close.

Ooh, OK.

We are just literally a couple of minutes away from me

being stung by the lionfish.

Ah, you guys know I get nervous right before I do these things.

Oh.

Those are some big spines.

I have never been spined by a marine creature before.

I have no idea how my body's going

to react to this venom, which makes me even more nervous.

It is time.

GoPro is officially rolling.

OK, now I'm going to pick the fish up

from the front of its jaw, and then I'm going to drop

my hand on top of the spikes.

Now, I may be spined in the process

of getting it out of there.

If that happens, I'm just going to run with the scene, OK?

Depending on how bad it is. OK.

OK?

I don't know what's going to happen.

I'm actually going to use the wooden spoon to turn it around.

I want to hold it with my left hand.

I'm actually going to position it--

look at that.

Look at how it's turning the spines into the spoon.

Can you see that?

Yeah.

It's like instinctively, like, positioning the spines to--

It sure is.

- attack it's predator.

OK, I'm going to try to get it by the mouth.

Ready?

Yeah.

Ooh, be careful.

Careful.

OK. I got it.

You have the mouth?

Got it by the mouth.

Here we go. There it is.

Oh, my goodness.

We're here at the moment.

Look at the display of those spines.

Wow.

OK.

Now, I'm going to drop my hand down on top of those.

You got a decent shot?

Yeah, can you position the fish a little more at me.

Yeah.

Let me kind of hold it out like that so you can see it.

Oh, wow.

I cannot believe you're about to do this.

Oh, buddy.

I'm Coyote Peterson.

And I'm about to enter the spike zone with the lionfish.

One--

- two, here we go, three.

Ah!

You all right?

Hahaha!

Did he get you?

Oh, yeah.

Tell me what you're feeling right now.

What's it feel like? - Ah!

Does it hurt?

Ooh!

Pinpricks!

Ooh!

Yep.

Oh, man.

Ah.

It's actually really not that bad.

But it is, keep in mind, a neurotoxin.

It's going to take a couple of minutes for this to set in.

It's not instantaneous like a wasp, a tarantula

hawk, or even the bullet ant.

You can see where the spines went in.

There, there, and I think his body kind of

turned I got like four spinings.

Ah!

Is it hot?

Nope.

Fingers are getting a little stiff.

Yep, I'm feeling something now.

Hold on a second.

Whew.

Whew.

The fish is OK.

Fish looks good.

That's what you get, he says, for picking me up.

Ah!

Ooh, wow. Yeah.

Ooh, wow.

Oh.

Ah.

It's kind of coming in a wave.

You know what that's indicative of?

Heel monster.

Heel monster.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

Oh, man.

All right, I'm going to take this thing off of my wrist.

Feeling any swelling?

Yeah, I can feel my arm getting tight.

And this is actually cutting off the circulation.

And what you don't want to do is cut off the circulation.

Oh, my gosh.

Oh, man.

Dude.

Feel my-- feel my forearm, dude.

That's like instant.

Squeeze under here.

Under there.

Oh, yeah.

Jeez.

Ah!

Oh, man.

Yeah.

Oh, it's burning good now.

I felt the spikes go in--

- and thought to myself, oh, that's kind of like a pinprick.

A big pin, but pinprick, nonetheless.

I kind of got up and said, that's not that bad.

How long will this last?

Ah, it's going to last until I get my hand in some hot water.

Not boiling hot.

I want as hot as I can stand because that heat will actually

break down the proteins in the venom, and it should dissipate.

But ooh, wow.

OK, it's getting worse, guys.

It's getting worse and I'm getting dizzy.

Hey should-- Mark, should we

take him to get the hot water?

Yeah.

I think we should probably wrap this up.

OK. OK.

Let's get inside. - No.

No. No.

No. No.

Got to get an outro.

OK, well, as we can see, the sting from the lionfish

is extremely painful.

If you are stung, seek medical attention

as quickly as possible.

You never know how your body is going to react to venom

in a situation like this.

It's an invasive species.

It's a fish.

It's a fish that's very easy to come across here

in the Southern part of Florida and up and down the East

Coast of the United States.

I'm Coyote Peterson-- no, wait.

Wait.

If you see a lionfish in the wild,

just admire it from a safe distance.

It's the most important thing you could do.

Do not try to capture these fish.

I'm Coyote Peterson,

be brave, stay wild.

We'll see you on the next adventure.

OK, I'm getting dizzy.