At a Glance

The creatures are turning up on Pensacola Beach and Navarre Beach.The Gulf currents push them toward shore in the winter.Officials say there aren't enough to worry about yet.

Dozens of Portuguese man-of-war have washed up on Florida Panhandle beaches recently.

Visitors to Pensacola and Navarre beaches said they saw the blue creatures about , the Pensacola News Journal reported.

Officials said there weren't enough of them to fly warning flags.

"It's normal to have creatures in the water out there, it's the Gulf of Mexico," Dave Greenwood, public safety chief on Pensacola Beach, told the News Journal. "But we'll fly a purple flag when they swarm."

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Portuguese man-of-war are often mistaken for jellyfish. However, each creature is actually .

The organisms, called polyps, each have a role to play. One makes up the gas-filled bubble at the top that looks like an old warship from Portugal or Spain (yep, that's how they got that name).

Other polyps make up the tentacles, which can deliver a nasty sting; the digestive organs; and the reproductive organs. They can't move on their own – they're at the mercy of the wind and ocean currents.

In the winter, currents in the Gulf of Mexico usually point toward the beach, Emlyn Mackenzie, a senior aquarist with Gulfarium Marine Adventure Park in Fort Walton Beach, told the News Journal. So it's not unusual to see man-of-war on the sand.

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The tentacles, which are usually about 30 feet long, can still sting after the man-of-war is dead. The sting is extremely painful for humans, but it is usually not deadly.

The man-of-war is similar to a creature called a bluebottle. Tens of thousands of people have been treated for in the past few days.