Venomous Marine Creatures in Thailand - Work in Progress - Call for Collaboration

[funrecdiver]

Call for Open Collaboration:

I've jump started a Google worksheet (number of spreadsheets), titled:

Venomous Marine Creatures in Thailand - Work in Progress

Anyone can view the document, but you must be logged in (to Google), or use the access link above, to edit the document. Anyone who is logged in (or anonymous users with access link) can edit (may change this later if a problem arises). All revision history is maintained, so it's not a problem if people make mistakes at this point in time; the document is for collaboration, knowledge development and sharing; and no PADI fees to participate

If anyone does make changes, we do ask you to do the following:

• Cite references you use on the Version, Refs & Notes sheet/page; and
• On the same sheet, enter your revision information.

To date, I have made considerable progress, but much work needs to be done. If you have some rainy day surface intervals and want to contribute, please do so. We can add, subtract, delete, edit, change, question, discuss, all in an open, collaborative spirit.

In addition, we can use this SB thread to discuss anything on the worksheets, anything at all.

Hope a number of SB regulars and/or Thailand divers will contribute!

 

[limbo]

Is it possible to make links to photographs of the species for ID purposes?

 

[funrecdiver]

Yes, I assume there is a way to do this with Google Spreadsheets. We could create a column with a URL to a photo or photos or we could try to insert a photo using the "Insert Image" feature. Do you have a particular photo or group of photos you would like to link to an entry? If so, let's try both ways and see what works best.

 

[funrecdiver]

Another thought that just came to mind is to assign a unique ID to each entry in the worksheet, and then link to a single image gallery where the ID photos are labeled with the unique ID.

There are a number of options. Which is best do you think?

 

[funrecdiver]

Update:

A couple of people have contacted me via PM on SB and wanted to know about schedule and plans.

One idea is to take the photos all information from the collaborative team members, and publish a book in Thailand. We were also considering an appendix with details of dive centers who contributed to the collaboration / book.

If interested or have any questions, post here or reply via PM.

Cheers.

 

[Luko]

Hi,
I had just looked into your spreadsheet and was wondering about your "criticality" scale, FWIW.

Pls allow me a remark on this scale : while I would agree on the low/medium/severe scale, I feel I also miss an extreme "lethal" step.
For instance you put the lionfish or sorpionfish on a "severe" criticality mark, which I may agree upon (causing extreme pain, flesh infections or faintings due to pain) although it might not be comparable to the severeness of the Blue ring octopus bite or the Geographic cone sting which are mostly... lethal, (as much as the laticauda colubrina bite although the threat in that case is low because of its quietness).

Cheers

 

[funrecdiver]

Hi Luko,

Good points and I agree with you. At the moment, I'm in an Internet cafe outside of Thailand and not able to reply as well as I would like. As a placeholder, my initial thoughts are that it could prove difficult to create more granularity in the "criticality scale" (adding "lethal" on top of "severe") because a number of the "lethal" envenomations are often "lethal" depending on the location of the wound. For example, a sting ray barb to the heart area is considerably more lethal (potentially) than a jab to the foot.

I was wreck diving the other day and at the bottom of the wreck, underneath the ship, there is a passageway we like to penetrate. There is always a ray there, and they are shy creatures (mostly), but when three of us are in a confined space with only a meter between the silt and the overhead ship, I would not want to have the ray come out underneath us, natually. Maybe that is why my air consumption increases in that space, LOL. If my chest hit the ray, that would be a "very bad thing" but if it was only my leg, "bad, but less bad".

Then again, a friend of mind who has many thousand dives told me they once were attacked by the typically shy blue-spotted ray (once in their life). It was flying, repeatly, toward his face in an aggressive manner. (Not your typical behavior for a blue-spotted ray, from what I understand).

I guess my thoughts are that it is difficult to have a "risk scale" that is perfect, but we can always add notes. Then again, maybe a forth category is in order. Good discussion and food for thought. Thanks.

Let's keep the dialog going....