Anywhere in the world, it is very common to spot a stranded jellyfish on a beach. However, this summer on the beaches of the U.S. East Coast thousands of knuckle-size, gelatinous blobs cover the sand.

1. www.worldweatheronline.com
Have you noticed mysterious goo rolling onto American
beaches?

2. www.worldweatheronline.com
Anywhere in the world, it is very
common to spot a stranded
jellyfish on a beach.
However, this summer on the
beaches of the U.S. East Coast
thousands of knuckle-size,
gelatinous blobs cover the sand.
What’s this about?

3. www.worldweatheronline.com
What are they?
These creatures are known as salps. Even though their
appearance resembles the jellyfish, they are more
closely related to humans!
A Salp is a barrel-shaped, planktonic marine
invertebrate animal. It pumps water through its
gelatinous body, enabling it to move and feed at the
same time.

4. www.worldweatheronline.com
How are they ending up on the beaches?
“Changes in wind direction
or water currents will push
the barrel-shaped animals
on to beaches, which
happens with some
regularity,” says Paul
Bologna, director of marine
biology and coastal
sciences program at
Montclair State University
in New Jersey.

5. www.worldweatheronline.com
A “weapon” against climate change
Salps’ reproduction involves asexual breeding. Individuals will
eventually release mature females and a male from a previous
generation will fertilise her one and only egg.
These methods require them to gorge on algae blooms. All that
eating produces large feacal pellets that “sink rapidly”, says Larry
Madin, executive vice president of research at the Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.
The pellets the salps produce contain a significant amount of carbon
dioxide, so as they sink, it’s essentially removed from the carbon
cycle.

6. www.worldweatheronline.com
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Have you notices mysterious goo rolling
onto American beaches?