Hoardes of blue bottle jellyfish attack Mumbai coast, 150 injured

Mumbai, Aug 7: Scores of blue bottle jellyfishes are spreading fear and panic among those visiting beaches in Mumbai. Jellyfish, also known as Portuguese man-o'-war, have stung around 150 people in beaches of Mumbai in the last few days.

Blue bottle jellyfish are often found on sandy shores of Mumbai during monsoons. They come to the shores for reproduction.

Blue bottle jellyfish on Mumbai beach

On Saturday, several people were stung at Aksa Beach in Mumbai. According to an ANI report, many people have been injured in the past two days, causing itching sensation and pain for hours. (Image courtesy - ANI/Twitter)

A shopkeeper helping those stung by jellyfish

A shopkeeper at Juhu Beach told news agency ANI that people should avoid visiting beaches for a few days as the shores are full of Man-o'-war jelly fishes.

"Beach is full of jellyfish. Many people have been injured, since two days I am helping them by rubbing lemon when they are stung. I suggest,people should avoid visiting beach for now," he said. (Image courtesy - ANI/Twitter)

Mumbai beach

Locals said that the blue bottle jellyfish are generally seen in Mumbai, during the mid-monsoon season every year, but this time they were spotted in unusually large numbers.

The Atlantic Portuguese man o' war (Physalia physalis), also known as the man-of-war, is a marine hydrozoan of the family Physaliidae found in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. Its long tentacles deliver a painful sting, which is venomous and powerful enough to kill fish or (rarely) humans. (Image courtesy - PTI)

People have been asked to refrain from visiting beaches for a few days

Despite its appearance, the Portuguese man o' war is not a true jellyfish but a siphonophore, which is not actually a single multicellular organism (true jellyfish are single organisms), but a colonial organism made up of specialized individual animals (of the same species) called zooids or polyps.

These polyps are attached to one another and physiologically integrated, to the extent that they cannot survive independently, creating a symbiotic relationship, requiring each polyp to work together and function like an individual animal.

The Indo-Pacific Portuguese man-of-war, or blue bottle, is a related species with very similar appearance found throughout the Indian and Pacific Oceans. (Image - PTI)