Man-of-war swarm South Florida beaches

Man-of-war swarm South Florida beaches - latimes.com: "Riding the wind and ocean currents, hordes of blue, alien-like creatures have descended upon South Florida's shoreline, entangling beachgoers in poisonous tentacles and delivering painful stings by the hundreds.

Each invader, in fact, isn't an 'it' but a 'they' — a colony of organisms that combine to create a single entity, the Portuguese man-of-war. The seafaring wanderer with the neon-blue gas bag and tentacles as long as 30 feet seems more suited to a sci-fi horror flick than a sunny tourist beach.

But in Florida, its appearance is a yearly, if painful, ritual. The man-of-war visits every winter and early spring, driven onshore by southeasterly winds and the Gulf Stream's current. But this year's swarm arrived in far greater numbers than usual.

'It was unbelievable,' said Crystal Haire, a lifeguard with Fort Lauderdale Ocean Rescue. 'I've never seen that many at once. The shoreline was blue.'"