First Record of Porpita porpita LINNAEUS, 1758 (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa) on the Syrian Coast of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea

Abstract

The new hydrozoa species Porpita porpita Linnaeus, 1758 was observed stranded along the southern shore of Lattakia city, the eastern Mediterranean Sea, for the first time on 23 March 2019. This record will extend the global distribution and region limits of the above species.

Porpita porpita(Cnidaria, Hydrozoa) expands its range: First record in the southern Mediterranean coasts

“…Mediterranean records of Porpita porpita , in red the new record of the current study and in black previous records from the literature. 1: The Catalan coasts of Spain (Guerrero et al, 2016), 2: Corsica (France) (Kousteni et al, 2019), 3: Central Tyrrhenian coasts of Italy (Furfaro et al, 2017), 4 to 8: The Ionian and Adriatic Apulian coasts of Italy (Gravili, 2006; Gravili et al, 2008, 2015; Lillo et al, 2019), 9: Malta (Deidun et al, 2015), 10–11: Turkey (Gürlek et al, 2020; Saygın, 2017) and 12: Syria (Mamish et al, 2019)…”

“…P. pacifica (a synonym of P. porpita) colonies also appeared in larger numbers along the coastline of Japan (Oiso et al, 2005) where the first case of contact dermatitis caused by this species was recorded. (Guerrero et al, 2016), 2: Corsica (France) (Kousteni et al, 2019), 3: Central Tyrrhenian coasts of Italy (Furfaro et al, 2017), 4 to 8: The Ionian and Adriatic Apulian coasts of Italy (Gravili, 2006;Gravili et al, 2008Gravili et al, , 2015Lillo et al, 2019), 9: Malta (Deidun et al, 2015), 10-11: Turkey (Gürlek et al, 2020;Saygın, 2017) and 12: Syria (Mamish et al, 2019)…”

Stranding of blue button jelly Porpita porpita on the beaches of Visakhapatnam, India (Western Bay of Bengal)

“…Porpita porpita is notable for forming huge rafts at sea and for massive beach strandings and aggregations that have been reported in various parts of the world's oceans (Chowdhury et al 2016;Madkour et al 2019;Mamish et al 2019;Gurlek et al 2020;Sahu et al 2020;Boukhicha and Tilg-Zouari 2021). A total of 2,039 records from the Indian Ocean can be found in the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), of which 1,005 occurrences have been reported so far, though other records may be scattered throughout the literature and other biogeographic databases.…”

Occurrence of the Blue Button Porpita porpita (Linnaeus, 1758) in the Iskenderun Bay, Northeastern Mediterranean Coast of Turkey

“…P. porpita is found in the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific Oceans (MEINKOTH, 1981;GUL & GRAVILI, 2014;CHOWDHURY et al, 2016). In the Mediterranean, P. porpita was reported from the eastern to the western coasts, including the Syrian coasts (MAMISH et al, 2019), the Ionian and Adriatic Sea (LILLO et al, 2019), the Maltese coasts (DEIDUN, 2010), the Tyrrhenian Sea (FURFARO et al, 2017), the Corsican Sea (KOUSTENI et al, 2019) and the Balearic Sea (GUERRERO et al, 2016). In Turkish marine waters, P. porpita was recorded for the first time from Lycia (today's Teke Pennisula) in February 1842 (FORBES, 1844) in the western Mediterranean coast of Turkey.…”