Pickle-like Creatures Invade Pacific West Coast

Pyrosome. (NOAA photo)

There's a garden of pickles growing in the Pacific Ocean!

OK, that's not exactly true, but there aren "Millions of tubular sea creatures called pyrosomes (that) have taken over the Pacific Ocean in an unprecedented bloom," reports an Oregon newspaper.

Scientists are baffled and in a pickle trying to explain these pickle-looking sea creatures.

"These bumpy, translucent organisms look like sea cucumbers that range in size from six inches to more than two feet long...

"And they’re everywhere, filling the waters off the West Coast all the way up to Alaska, and washing up on beaches.

"One research boat caught 60,000 of them in five minutes. They’re so thick in Alaska that fishermen gave up on fishing because their hooks were coming up full of pyrosomes instead of salmon."

"Unusual" Whale Shark in California Waters

Photo from Pete Thomas Outdoors of whale shark
near Catalina Island.

Imagine finding a 20-25 foot whale shark near Catalina Island, just 26 miles off the Southern California shoreline.  Well, a fishing boat did find one on Sunday, Sept. 14, 2014. That's unusual.  So unusual that Dr. Christopher Lowe, who runs the Shark Lab at Cal State Long Beach said that "...whale sharks are very rare in this neck of the woods."

Whale sharks are usually seen in warmer waters, like in Hawaii,  Mexico and the Sea of Cortez--not in California's cooler waters.

But unusual events continue along California's coastal waters.

Scientists who measure water temperatures from satellites, report that the surface of Pacific coast, especially in Southern California, is warmer than usual.  They write that this warming event is "...ongoing and highly unusual" for this neck of the woods (or ocean!).

What does that mean?

For one, you won't have to go to Mexico to see a whale shark! It also means other exotic sea life will likely make their way to California waters instead of the tropical waters where they normally live.

Why is this important?

Each species of sea life prefer certain temperatures of water.  So, that means changes in plankton and California's fish colony.  

So while there may be more tuna in the water, there may also be less salmon (a fish that prefers cooler waters).  

Warmer waters can also change the climate of a cool-water areas.

Stay tuned.  

Meanwhile watch this video by award winning videographer, Becky Kagan Schott, about whale sharks.

Blue Sea Creatures: Fly By the Wind and Land on the Beach

There they were, those fabulously blue and clear glass, ummm, well, what are these clumps of electric blue-see-through-kind of-jellyfish-like things on the beach???

Photo credit:  Wikipedia Commons

C. Coimbra Photo

C. Coimbra Photo

Some people call these electric blue visitors, By-the-Wind Sailors because they blow in from the middle of the Pacific Ocean where the water is warmer.  

Their real name is Velella velella and they are cnidarians (a sea-life form than includes jellyfish and coral and with out a backbone or spine). 

The last time these sailors landed on West Coast beaches was in 2006. Scientists don't know why they sometimes wash up on the beach.  They are not dangerous.  

It Lives to Eat Other Starfish

If you were a five legged (or ray) starfish just hanging around the undersea rocks and you saw this 13-legged starfish coming your way, you better move fast.  Why? Because it's probably coming to get you.

With nicknames like the 13-Arm Hammerlock, or Cannibal Sun Star, this rare but aggressive  Dawson's Sun Star  (solaster dawsoni) even looks menacing, or maybe more like a creepy character from Pirates of the Caribbean.  And it also dines on other starfishes.

The above photo was recently taken off the shores of Big Sur, along the central coast of California, during a Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary field project.

The Dawson's Sun Star has no natural enemies--except itself--henceforth, that cannibal nickname.

A Dawson's Sun Star devouring another starfish.

All photos from NOAA/Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary



 

Gray Whales Begin A Long Migration

Thousands of gray whales are heading south for winter. 

  In Fall, groups--or pods--of gray whales leave the cold seas of Alaska where they feed all summer long to spend their winters in the warm and clear waters of Mexico. This is called a migration.  It is one of the longest migration routes in nature.  

Two weeks ago we saw over 20 gray whales swim past us along the Central Coast of California.  A gray whale swims about 6 miles per hour.

Of all the whales in the ocean, gray whales are the oldest baleen whales in the world. (Baleen means these whales do not have sharp teeth like killer whales.)

By the end of December most of the gray whales will reach the Mexican waters of Baja California. 

It's not as easy to safely swimming this 5,000 mile route as it was before us humans came upon the scene.  Over 100 years ago humans hunted gray whales almost to the point where there were only a few left.  But gray whales are protected from big time hunting.  This helped gray whales rebuild their population.

Neptune 911 For Kids will update the gray whale migration later in December.