Or mass hysteria. Even when there were "droves" of jellyfish at Long Beach a few weeks back, 90 percent of them were harmless clear ones. Of the red stingy variety, you might spot a few—little girls were scooping them out of the water and watching them jet around in their buckets. For the last two weeks, the beach has been red-jellyfish-free. By which I mean, there were a few of them drifting around here and there. Because there are always a few of them here and there in the summer. And there always have been! I love a good menace, but this isn't one.

So enough of all this monster and jellyfish nonsense. The only things we have to fear are monkeys and sharks. For now.

The Daily News:

Esteban Neira of Lanus, Argentina, died Sunday after swimming in the Hudson River during the New York City Triathlon. Dozens of fellow athletes reported being stung by swarms of jellyfish, and afterward they wondered whether Neira fell victim to the slimy creatures.

The Times:

Vince Lingner, 44, from Inwood, who completed the triathlon, said he got stung two or three times.

“You can feel this weirdness, this heat going up your arm, then little spots of heat radiating from the place where you got stung,” he said. “I’d never been stung by a jellyfish before, but I’d heard about it. So when it happened, I thought, well, this is what it feels like.”

The Sun:

The cyanea capillata, better known as the Lion's Mane, has been arriving in "giant swarms" since last year, Ms. Drew said. The species can be more than a foot in diameter and has tentacles even longer than that.

Newsday:

They say one breed in particular _ the lion's mane _ showed up about a month earlier than usual. The biologists blame everything from breeding conditions and climate change for the abundance of jellyfish so early in the season.

Cornell University biologist Mark Bain says there is "widespread evidence of increasing jellyfish around the world."

Whatever you do, don't let them know you're afraid. They can sense it—in their jelly.