“The invasion of blue dragons“.”The blue dragons frightened Spain“.”The lethal blue dragons close the beaches in Alicante” Glaucus Atlanticusa nudibrand mollusk rarely sighted in the Mediterranean, but which in recent decades has been pending more and more often, for reasons that we explain below.
The first official reports arrived via social media from the local police of Guardamar del Segura and the mayor of the City of the Alicine, then followed by others from the island of Majorca, where the blue dragons had been seen for the first time for 300 years. But what are they, and above all why many also call them “lethal”?
What are these blue dragons? Glaucus Atlanticus It is a nudibranchio mollusk, as the name suggests is without shell: it is abandoned after the larval stadium. Famous for their colors and shapes that seem to come out of a fairytale book, they are generally small animals (even if some, such as Hexabranchus Sanguineusthey can reach 60 cm) and distributed in the seas all over the world, in particular in Southeast Asia, and to the depths that can touch 700 meters.
Where this species lives. The blue dragon is one of the best known species due to its Japanese cartoon appearance: distributed now in all the seas of the world, it usually lives in the open sea, where it becomes transported by the currents by remaining afloat thanks to a gas bubble present in the stomach. The most interesting feature of this animal? It is equipped with three pairs of appendices, “decorated” with thin structures called waxing. This is where the blue dragon hides its poison.
So is it really poisonous? Yes, even if it is not lethal. And the reason why it is particularly interesting: the blue dragons, in fact, do not internally produce their poison. Instead they feed on other poisonous species, such as the Portuguese caravel or the Velella Velella: they eat them and “appropriate” of their poison cells, storing them at high concentrations in the waxing. Coming into contact with the appendages of a blue dragon can therefore produce an effect similar to that of the species that feeds itself: it is a painful puncture, and which can be dangerous in allergic, but absolutely not lethal subjects (there are no recorded cases of death caused by Glaucus Atlanticus).
How to intervene. This does not mean that the blue dragons can be taken lightly, perhaps handling them after finding them on the beach to take a memorable photo: however not lethal, we reiterate that the puncture can also be very painful. If it happens to it, the advice are first of all to send you immediately to a doctor, and secondly not to rub the wound or wash it with clean water, alcohol or vinegar: better the salted water of the sea.
What do blue dragons do in Spain? As mentioned, in the Balearics, Blue Dragons were not seen since 1700, while the Alicante area had already received a visit a couple of years ago. There are still no studies that officially explain why they are increasingly frequent in the Mediterranean, but considering that they are animals that have very specific needs in terms of water temperature in which they live, it is not difficult to imagine that the heating of the oceans is the main responsible.
At the moment, however, the alarm in Spain seems to have passed, and after a few closing days the breeder beaches have been reopened. But the possibility that the situation can be reworked in the coming years is increasing with every tenth of the temperature increase in water.
