Over 400 people were stung by jellyfish in Salobreña - no cases of jellyfish being bitten by humans were recorded. This one-side aggression has not gone unnoticed.

I have never quite understood this attraction for beaches in high summer; you either lay on the beach being Stuka-dived by flies and plundered for sweat, or plunge into the water and get gang-mugged by a swarm of diaphanous, sink plungers trailing an armoury of cat-of-nine-tails.

Anyway, each to his own…

Scores of bathers were treated for jellyfish stings by Red Cross volunteers during July. Their official figures stand at 425 victims. Last year the figure for the whole of summer was 962 treatments applied.

An egg head at Universidad de Granada, Luis Sánchez Tocino, explained that winds and currents coming from deep inside the Mediterranean; i.e., to the East, bring jellyfish of the kind Pelagia noctiluca, more commonly known as ‘little bastards’ or ‘mauve stingers’ if the kids about .

Most of them are inmature ones (obviously males) as the adult creature can grow to 20cm across its dome.

The recommendations remain the same concerning stings: don’t gargle with jellyfish. Use seawater not fresh water, to remove pieces of tentacles on the skin around the sting area.

There have been sightings of bigger jelly gits in Salobreña waters of the kind, Phyllorhiza punctata, normally found in the Pacific and if one has been spotted, then you can be sure that it is not travelling alone. In fact, they were first detected in the Mediterranean in 1965.

(News: Salobrena, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)