CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — When going for a walk along one of our beaches, people are usually only worried about getting stung by a jellyfish, but there's a much smaller creature that beachgoers should be concerned about this spring. Right now, they can be found on North Padre, South Padre and Mustang Islands.
Jace Tunnell with the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico studies at Texas A&M University- Corpus Christi said they are showing up due to the strong southeast winds that the Coastal Bend gets during the spring.
These bright blue sea slugs are called Glaucus Atlanticus, but they’re more commonly called blue dragons.
“They have real bright, iridescent, blue and silver and so whenever they wash up people automatically go and want to pick them up, and we always tell people don't touch," Tunnell said.
Tunnell said after feeding off the larger man o’ war jellyfish, the blue dragon's danger lies in its six arms.
“They eat the man o' wars, they collect the stinging cells and they put those into the feather-like appendages, and they can release them all at one time,” he said. “If you accidently step on it or accidently squeeze it, it could release all the stinging cells all at one time and it can really pack a punch."
A man o' war jellyfish's tentacles can stretch to over 30 feet. When stung the pain can last anywhere between one and three hours.
Blue dragons typically only grow to about an inch in diameter, but Tunnell says the small creature can easily do more damage
“If you get stung by the blue dragon, that's like three times the intensity of a man o' war," he said. "We ask people if they see them, just take a photo, admire their uniqueness and then just leave them there. If they want to, they can try and put them back in the ocean, but because of how the ocean works, they’re just going to wash back up. So, they could bury it if they wanted to."
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