This is a close up of what has washed up on the shore behind our house; it’s about the size of a large coaster. I probably wouldn’t have even noticed it, except that it’s one of dozens that have suddenly appeared. Yuck!
I googled “goo on the shore”, and got responses about jellyfish. I figured it could be a jellyfish, but where are the tentacles? And why are there so many of them?
Another pile of goo looked like this.
The markings helped me to identify that, sure enough, these are jellyfish – moon jellyfish, to be specific. Dead moon jellyfish, to be even more specific. The four rounded squares are gonads, and they do have tentacles, but once washed onto the shore, all the parts meld together into one indistinguishable pile of goo. This one is just hanging on as the tide goes out.
Moon jellyfish are very common in north Atlantic waters. They have no brains, blood or hearts, and are comprised primarily of water. But they do eat – plankton mostly. And they do reproduce. Otherwise, they just float through the water until they either wash up on shore as the tide goes out or die a natural death within about 8-12 months.
Moon jellyfish do not pose a danger to humans. If you swam into one, it might sting you but the sting effect is very mild. It’s the bell pepper of the jellyfish world.
Nature can be both beautiful and disgusting. As if the jellyfish weren’t enough, we also awoke a few weeks ago to find dozens of squid in various states of dead along the water’s edge.
This is not uncommon in this area, although it happened weeks earlier than usual. The squid come into shore seeking prey, and get caught in the tides. Some Newfoundlanders will harvest squid that are recently dead for dinner. Others believe you should only harvest live ones. We declined to do either, not being huge fans of squid. But maybe next year!
These have since turned into goo, as decomposition and scavengers have had their way with them.
So we have a lot of goo on our formerly pristine shore – just part of nature’s cycle. I wonder what’s next?!
Definitely not city living! :-)) How’s the smell – I used to love a marine musty smell by the ocean when I lived in Victoria.
There was very little smell before the squid arrived. Now, it smells more like I expect the ocean to smell.
So much to see and learn, huh?
“…various states of dead…” is my favourite phrase in this post 🙂
I can’t take credit for “various states of dead”. Les described it that way.
I heard a piece on CBC this morning about marine life in B.C. being ‘cooked alive’ – the waters had become so hot… Makes me wonder if this has to do with global warming affecting the delicate marine ecosystems.
I heard that too. Heartbreaking! It seems that it’s not that unusual here for the squid and jellyfish to wash up. But the squid are much earlier than usual.