Yet another Portuguese Man o’War has washed up on the Costa del Sol.
Footage shared on Instagram shows the creature being thrashed by the waves on the shores of Fuengirola.
The video was captured by DJ Jota Mora (@jotamora_), who was walking along the beach on Saturday when he came across the creature.
The Portuguese Man o’War can cause a very nasty sting on humans, and even death in people already vulnerable due to their age or certain medical conditions.
They can also prove fatal to dogs, meaning those walking their pets on the beach should be on alert.
The animal is not technically a jellyfish, but rather a siphonophore, which is ‘a colony of specialised animals called zooids that work together as one’, according to Oceana.org.
The creatures resemble a ‘large translucent purple float, the crest tipped with pink, and long blueish-violet tentacles’, according to the UK’s Wildlife Trust.
There has been a notable surge in sightings over the past few months, both along the Mediterranean coast and on Spain’s holiday islands.
In Tenerife, a rare purple flag was recently unfurled, alerting beachgoers to the potential danger.
Macarena Marambio, a researcher at the Institute of Marine Science in Barcelona, told The Guardian last year: ‘The jellyfish are becoming more common and are increasing both their seasonal and regional distribution.
‘Warmer seas aid reproduction and as a result, we’re seeing increasing numbers of the purple barrel jellyfish.’
Her colleague Josep Maria Gili added that there is ‘no short-term solution because it’s about climate. We’ll have to get used to sharing our beaches with jellyfish.’
