This bright, blue seat creature you’re looking at has been dubbed “the most beautiful killer in the ocean” because it is as amazingly blue as it is deadly.

Known as Glaucus atlanticus aka the blue dragon or the blue sea slug, this creature has a fatal sting that can induce pain, stinging and nausea in the victim. This particular specimen, and roughly 19 others, were discovered by a lady named Maria Wagener while she was out for a stroll on Fish Hoek Beach near Cape Town in South Africa.

She claims her gut told her not to touch them. “I’ve never seen them before and I’ve lived near this beach for most of my life,” she said, as reported by news.co.au.

“I pick up starfish all the time and put them back into the sea but I had a feeling that these would have a sting. I probably would have put them back in the sea if I’d had something to lift them, but no, I didn’t touch them!”

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At the time Ms Wagener found them, they were still squirming about and alive, perhaps waiting for the high tide to draw them back into the water. “I’ve never seen them before and I’ve lived near this beach for most of my life,” she added.

“They’re a bit like a sea scorpion. They are small, about an inch in length. They’re blue on the top and white underneath. “It wasn’t difficult to spot them on the white sand.”

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Might we remind you that there are far more mysterious creatures that call the ocean bed their home. Take this ‘walking’ fish from the Caribbean, for instance, that used its fins seemingly as legs to propel itself forward. This one’s a shortnose batfish that was filmed ‘walking’ in a French Key Cut, a muddy channel, near the island of Roatán, Honduras.