Experts confirm salpa is harmless after Axarquía and Costa Tropical beaches inundated

Experts from Malaga's Aula del Mar centre have called for "calm" after a plague of salpa, a transparent invertebrate which can be confused with plastic or jellyfish, inundated the shores of the Axarquía and Costa Tropical last weekend.

The research centre reassured beach-goers that the invertebrates, which eat algae and plankton, filtering sea water as it does so, are "harmless" and a "natural phenomenon" which occurs when there are high levels of phytoplankton in the sea.

A cleaning operation was put in place along the Costa Tropical, where experts claimed that the salpa can start to smell if there is a large accumulation on beaches.