So many sea creatures we don’t know about until a beach cast drops them at our feet. It happened again on December 13th, 2016. When I topped the foredune just ahead of high tide I didn’t know a mystery awaited in the drift line.
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I had to get on Twitter right away to find out what I was looking at. Within minutes @RebaFay and @mle425 helped me out. They are both great naturalists and I’m grateful to them for letting me know the spiny cartilaginous-feeling organisms I found were pelagic colonial tunicates called pyrosomes.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Jackie Sones shares a ton of interesting information about this, or a very similar pyrosome, in “Fire bodies”. Her blog, The Natural History of Bodega Head, is wonderful and full of great coastal natural history. iNaturalist has a page on pyrosomes here. A recent article, Rare, Bizarre Glowing Creatures Strand on Oregon Coast Beaches, gives additional information about pyrosomes and photos by Tiffany Boothe of Seaside Aquarium.
Acknowledgements
I thank Emily Jones and Rebecca Johnson for helping me with the identification of the pyrosomes and pointing me to “Fire Bodies” and the iNaturalist page on pyrosomes. I am also grateful to Stephen Grace for bringing the article about pyrosomes on Oregon coast beaches to my attention. Stephen is the author of Tides and Trails, a website and blog devoted to great photos and natural history of the northern Oregon coast; it’s well worth following Stephen’s work.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
