The Asociación Medioambiental de Rincón de la Victoria (AMR) has come across the presence of a swarm of very large jellyfish. Some of the specimens weigh between 40 and 45 kilos – not a very nice attachment to wear as you plod back up the beach, right?

This kind of wobbly fiend is called a Rhopilema Nomadica and was found along the Axarquía coastline of Torre de Benagalbón.

Wikipedia has this to say about the blighter: Rhopilema nomadica, the nomad jellyfish, is a jellyfish indigenous to tropical warm waters of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Since 1970’s it has been also found in Mediterranean Sea, where it entered via the Suez Canal (Lessepsian migration). It has been found in the Eastern Mediterranean, off the coast of Israel, Turkey, and in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Greece. Rhopilema Nomadica’s body is light blue and the bell is rounded. It can grow up to 10 kg of weight, and its bell is commonly 40–60 cm.

In other words, when they inaugurated the Suez Canal in 1869 this jellyfish found a way into the Mediterranean where they are as welcome as digested-curry emissions in a lift.

It’s not just about one sneaking up on you when you’re swimming but also that some seawater-cooled power stations along the Mediterranean coast have had to instal filters over their seawater intake systems, because when the jellyfish swarm, they can overwhelm the systems.

Editorial comment: the association claimed that they weighed between 40 and 45 kilos but as wiki puts the average weight at 10kg and their dimension as around 40cm, they appear to have got the weight and measurements mixed up. Let’s keep our fingers cross that this is the case.

(Torre de Benagalbón, Axarquia, Costa del Sol, Malaga, Andalucia – Photo E. Cabezas)