In 1880, a gigantic pink jellyfish was spotted off the northern coast of Italy. The next sighting took 65 years. The next, another half a century. The next was just this week.

A beautiful – albeit scary – specimen of the Drymonema dalmatinum, or its way more straightforward name the Stinging Cauliflower (eesh), was filmed in northeastern Italy last Wednesday. And yes, this is just the fourth time one of these giants has ever been spotted in history.

The pink giant is thought to be the largest and rarest jellyfish in the Mediterannean, and was filmed by amateur divers in the Miramare Biosphere Reserve off the coast of Miramar, some seven kilometres away from the northeastern Italian city of Trieste.

The sighting was during a routine patrol of the reserve, with a spokesperson calling it “truly execptional”.

Before this last decade’s sighting, it was actually believed that the species had become extinct, but this latest specimen – measuring about 50 centimetres – added new hope (and fear) in the hearts of many.

According to one of the researches at the Miramare Biosphere Reserve, if you ever end up coming face-to-tentacle with one of these babies, you should “move away immediately but also consider yourself very privileged to have seen one”. You don’t have to tell me twice, bro.

Tag someone who loves jellyfish… and someone who’d die if they had to spot one of these at a Maltese beach.