At first glance, Matt Bracken thought the strange jelly-like creatures that washed up this week in Huntington were salps, animals with nerve cords related to vertebrates.
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But after further inspection, and seeing images of the creatures burrowing in the sand, the UC Irvine associate professor at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology determined them to be sea cucumbers unearthed by recent storms.
“My guess is that the recent storms shifted the sands, exposing them,” he wrote via e-mail after seeing more images posted online.
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The strange looking, gelatinous creatures made headline news around the country after people posted images online of the interesting sight, scattered by the thousands on the sand late Tuesday. By Wednesday, they were mostly gone, just a few small ones scattered on the sand.
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Lifeguards and people on social media tried to figure out what they were.
“I’ve never seen anything like that before, it looks odd,” said Huntington Marine Safety Lt. Claude Panis, who has worked for the lifeguard department for 38 years.
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Some people were speculating they were “sea salps,” gelatinous creatures that look like jellyfish but are actually animals with nerve cords related to vertebrates, animals with backbones.
Others in a Huntington Beach community forum on social media had different theories:
“Baby tremor monsters?” one person speculated.
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“Burrowing sea cucumbers!” guessed another.
“Coyote eggs,” someone quipped.
“They are alien eggs. They are going to hatch and take over the world,” Panis joked.
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Brackenat first went along with some of the speculators saying they are likely “pelagic tunicates,” otherwise known as salps.
“These marine invertebrates look sort of like jellyfish, but they are actually more closely related to vertebrates (e.g., humans) than to other invertebrates,” he wrote in an e-mail response after examining images. “They occasionally bloom off the California coast.”
But upon further research, he thinks they are more likely burrowing sea cucumbers.
The creatures, some slithering along and burrowing into the sand, were spotted in areas of Huntington City and Huntington State Beach. Nearby Newport Beach had no reports of the creatures, lifeguards said.
Panis said the jellies might be a lingering affect of the dwindling El Niño. Similarly, there’s been an influx of stingrays uncommonly close to shore for this time of year that is stumping lifeguards.
“There’s all kinds of weird things happening,” he said. “It’s just strange.”