This is the moment a tourist on a popular Ukrainian beach gives up on trying to enjoy the water and instead documents the swarm of sea fleas that have been biting him and other swimmers throughout the day.

The footage was captured in the Ukrainian port city of Berdyansk on the Azov coast and uploaded to YouTube last Sunday (20th June).

The unnamed tourist who recorded the video says: “The fleas stick to you and then bite. They are all over the place now.”

He added: “It’s painful when they bite you and at this point, the whole beach is covered in the fleas. It’s difficult to enjoy swimming when they are biting you.”

Sea fleas (Talitrus saltator) otherwise known as sandhoppers have been in the headlines recently for ruining countless beach holidays with their painful bites.

The sand-hopper only grows to 20 millimetres in size and has round black eyes and a grey-brown body.

They suck the blood from flesh and leave bites similar to mosquitos and in certain cases when swimmers have found themselves in a swarm of fleas they leave behind hundreds of tiny itchy and painful bites.

A particularly brutal incident occurred in Melbourne, Australia, where Sam Kanizay, 16, left the sea after enjoying a swim only to find that blood was gushing from his feet.

It wasn’t confirmed but the bites were suspected to have been caused by a swarm of sea fleas attacking the teenager.