A PURPLE creature of the deep has washed up on Coolum Beach on the Sunshine Coast — and scientists think it could be a new species.

The brilliant-coloured jellyfish surprised lifeguards who clocked on for work early Wednesday.

Lying on the shoreline, the glowing purple blob had tentacles stretching out to about 1m.

Lifeguard Michael Daly said he had never before seen such a jellyfish on the beach.

“It’s still alive. We put gloves on and picked it up by head and put it in a bucket and we hope someone from Underwater World will be able to identify it,” he said.

“I’ve never seen anything like. It’s bright purple like a child’s toy. The head is the size of a dinner plate and the tentacles are about 1m long.

“We’re not sure if it has harmful stinging cells.”

Jellyfish expert Dr Lisa-Ann Gershwin has identified the creature as a thysanostoma but said it could be a new species because of the vivid colour.

Most thysanostoma are a brownish hue and a few are known to wash up on beaches each year - however it is not considered common.

Dr Gershwin told The Courier Mail she had never seen that blubber in purple and was very excited.

“It could be something new to science. The reason my antenna go up is it’s such a different colour from what we normally see, so it could also be different in other ways,” said Dr Gershwin.

“It’s not just a little purple – this sucker is seriously purple.”

Dr Gershwin said two other species of thysanostoma frequented Australian waters and both were microscopically different from each other – but neither were coloured.

Dr Gershwin said the jellyfish world had very few species in shades of purple – which made this creature even rarer. It was also much larger than other thysanostoma which normally had a head the size of a woman’s fist.

“We don’t know what kind of sting its gives. The lifeguards were right to take it (away) from the water. I applaud them because we might actually have discovered a new species, and they might have prevented someone from being stung.”

She said the colour was another indicator that the sea creature could pack a punch in the stinging department.

“The colour just screams ‘Don’t mess with me’.”

The jellyfish has been collected by Underwater World on the Sunshine Coast and will be assessed this afternoon.

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