The Portuguese Man-of-War Has Always Entered the Mediterranean Sea—Strandings, Sightings, and Museum Collections

Abstract

A search of records from different kinds of sources namely, scientific and grey literature, social media, and zoological museum collections, has been carried out to review the incidence of Physalia physalis (Linnaeus, 1758), the Portuguese man-of-war, in the Mediterranean Sea. The temporal frame of the records, considered valid if documented with images or collected specimens, ranged from the second half of the eighteenth century to the year 2021. Thanks to colonies preserved in some Italian historical museum collections, originating from the western basin, it was possible to date the putative first documented record of P. physalis of the Mediterranean Sea in 1850. The dataset shows some massive strandings that occurred in localities of the Strait of Gibraltar and Alboran Sea, the area of the entrance, from the Atlantic toward the Mediterranean waters, and the starting point from where the species spread toward the western and central basin. Physalia physalis does not reach the eastern area of the Mediterranean Sea. As the records of this species from the Italian maritime regions were abundant in the summertime and considering the danger related to contact with humans, they were subdivided into three categories of risk according to the months of occurrence. These categories were created to assign a level of danger for swimmers. The increasing sightings of such a poisonous cnidarian in coastal waters can represent a risk to human health, and a threat to all those activities linked to the marine tourism sector. The overview given goes beyond scientific purposes and aims to reach society and public administrators. The involvement of citizens and touristic structures for the early detection of P. physalis can play a key role in preventing encounters with the species, allowing marine tourist facilities to operate within a range of reasonable security.

Museomics Provides Insights into Conservation and Education: The Instance of an African Lion Specimen from the Museum of Zoology “Pietro Doderlein”

“…Museums have a fundamental role in such a view as they can invest efforts in exhibitions of exotic animal collections and digitizing material to adopt for education purposes, but also with potential scientific benefits. Natural history collections, often forgotten, are a crucial cornerstone for systematics, natural history, ecology, and conservation biology, and represent important sources of biological data for scientists [3,54,55,58]. Many authors have highlighted the primary benefits that natural history collections provide to science and society [59].…”

“…Historical collections from natural history museums represent an important reservoir of biological materials that could be used to trace biodiversity changes through time. Collections can be important to resolve taxonomic issues and reconstruct distribution patterns of species and evolutionary processes across different time frames and geographical areas [1][2][3]. The investigation of such materials is of particular importance for rare or threatened species, such as large marine or terrestrial carnivores, often stored in old collections [4][5][6].…”

Jellyfish Distribution and Abundance on the Southern Coast of the Iberian Peninsula

“…Our data closely resemble those obtained by Prieto and Navarro (2013). Physalia physalis completes its life cycle in the ocean, and the Alboran Sea surface currents could behave as physical barriers to the flow toward the western Mediterranean (Tiralongo et al 2022). A peculiarity related to the temporal distribution (annual and year-on-year) of the Portuguese man o' war sightings is worth highlighting.…”

“…The Earth's fluid domain is the hydrosphere, which mainly includes the body of water in the world' oceans (Strahler 2013). Indeed, most water on Earth is stored in the oceans.…”

Genetic and Distribution Data of the Bramble Shark Echinorhinus brucus (Bonnaterre, 1788) and the Prickly Shark Echinorhinus cookei Pietschmann, 1928 to Better Reconstruct Their Conservation Status

“…Individuals of this species have rarely been fished worldwide in the nineteenth century and captured as bycatch or target species in meat and liver oil fisheries [4]. A source of information on the species is natural history museums or the sighting records collected in different ways [5][6][7].…”