I know my way around weird animals, yet I had never heard of salp, plural salps. They are translucent animals of about 2-4 inches, and they live in the sea in chains of hundreds of animals, all brothers, who later become all sisters.
They are becoming more and more plentiful, and are occasionally so plentiful they slime whole beaches.
They are weird.
Link to Wikipedia articlethat will probably set you off on an Internet search about salps. You can thank me later.
Fun fact: they’re a type of tunicate, which is in the chordata phylum. This means that they are more related to humans than they are jellyfish and other assorted translucent sea creatures.
Other tunicates look very different. Some even look weird in a different direction.
A few years ago there was a salp invasion at the Jersey Shore. Millions of them in the surf. Feeling them slide past me gave me the willies.
And the salps were pretty gross as well!
[sub]Psst! No one tell Loach that those were really condoms.[/sub]
Very funny. I know condoms feel different.
There’s a story from a few years ago. I saw that someone described it like swimming through Gummi Bears.
Jelly fish-like creatures really have been increasing in numbers lately in all seas. Even becoming pests. Ecologists say they fill the gaps left by overfishing.
Still, jellyfish are fascinating creatures. I was on vacation in Italy this spring (One -very- long day’s drive from where I live) and the beach there was littered with millions of little Vellela jellyfish.
Vellela’s or “by the wind sailors” are beautiful, delicate little creatures, like something out of a fairy tale. The have a cornflower blue tiny body, the shape and size of a flower, and a little glass-like transparent tri-angular sail that sticks out above the water and acts as a little sail, transporting the Vellelas across the oceans.
We had a inflatable boat and went behind the surf to see the vellela still alive, still in their element. Every seventh wave was crested with a little sail catching the sun. I looked it up and it turns out this massive crashing of vellella occurred maybe once every twenty years.
What a wonderful world!