Catania, 22 July 2022 – Una woman is hospitalized in intensive care for a sting Portuguese Caravel. The bather would have come into contact with the dangerous tentacles of the Physalia physalis, its scientific name, near the Island of the Cyclops, in front of Aci Trezza. The woman, who already suffers from previous diseases, felt ill after the bath and soon accused headache, vomiting, breathing difficulties and a cardiac arrhythmia. She is now hospitalized at the Policlinico San Marco in Catania.
Jellyfish in the Mediterranean, how to recognize the dangerous ones. Nightmare Caravella
The Portuguese Caravel is mistaken for a jellyfish, in reality it is a siphonophore: it is not a single multicellular organism, but of the aggregation of specialized individuals of four different types, called zooids, connected and physiologically integrated with each other. Its tentacles are capable of very painful stings that tear even the flesh, and can transmit ten types of venom, which the nematocysts in the tentacles of the Portuguese Caravel are full of, and each type of venom is characterized by its own color (for some no remedies are known yet). Furthermore, the length of its tentacles, which remain poisonous even after they have detached, can vary from 10 to 50 meters making them difficult to envy and therefore dangerous for swimmers.
It is true that in the Mediterranean the Portuguese Caravel is rare, but it exists, and its presence is increasing: specimens have already been spottedi in Sicily, Sardinia, in the Strait of Messina is in the mar Ligure. In 2010 there was also a fatal case: a woman died in Sardinia, the 69-year-old Maria Furcas, pointing to the coast of Porto Tramatzu, in the municipality of Villaputzu.