Purple jellyfish spotted on Colva-Benaulim beach stretch

COLVA/PANAJI: A small colony of purple-striped jellyfish which washed ashore on the popular Colva-Benaulim beach stretch on Thursday morning stirred interest among locals and tourists alike.

Over half a dozen of the dinner plate-sized jellyfish were seen at low tide on a less than 4km stretch of the beach. Many foreign tourists were seen enthusiastically photographing the bright organisms.

Interestingly, the vividlyhued invertebrates have not been sighted on Goan beaches in recent memory. Their occurrence is usually reported in some Pacific Ocean countries and their bite is said to be toxic.

“This is a rare occurrence and certainly a harmful one,” a former fisheries scientist at the National Institute of Oceanography, Baban Ingole, said. “A multiple bite – if four or five of them sting simultaneously, could be serious,” he added.

Though the frequency of jellyfish surfacing on Goan beaches, mostly the blue bottle and the disc variety, is a rising concern, the problem is not as bad as the recent incident in Queensland, Australia, where according to reports, several beaches had to be shut after an invasion of the toxic marine organisms resulted in thousands of people being stung.

NIO scientists are trying to obtain a sample of the species as they received reports late on Thursday. “The species in the photograph has an unusual colour and a study of morphological characteristics of its genetics is needed,” one scientist said.

While the disc and blue bottle variety of jellyfish are smaller in size, the purplestriped jelly fish, which Ingole identified from a photograph, is much bigger when alive and filled with water. It shrinks after it dies. Further, the dinner plate size of the species is unlike that of the varieties that usually get caught in fishing net or sometimes wash ashore due to turbulence in the sea.

Stretches of Goa’s beaches witnessed jellyfish blooms in July 2008 and many tourists and others had to be hospitalised after they were stung by the Portuguese Man-O’-War species. The episode had prompted Ingole and his NIO colleague, R A Sreepada to carry out a study on the subject.

Jellyfish can survive increasing temperature and pollution levels. In fact, the increasing levels of pollution in coastal waters are conducive for their growth.