A Walk on the Beach

[seadoggirl]

I love to walk Johnson Beach and look for shells. I try to plan my shelling adventures after we have a good east or south east wind of 15 or 20 knots. Then I wait for the next low tide and off we go. On a good day I'll get two 5 gallon buckets full of shells for my collection. Anyway, last Sunday 1.11.09 we went over to the beach which is directly across the Intercoastal from our house. When I started looking around I saw hundreds of these -

I remember Bugman saying that he had seen this before - hundreds of them. I've lived on the coast in Alabama all my life and have never seen this many of them in one place. I wonder if anybody knows why they commit mass suicide?

These Man of Wars scare the crap out of me in the water but the number of them on the beach was sad.

Any ideas?

 

[MRXRAY]

My wife and I saw the same thing at Navarre beach last Saturday...... Thousands!!! Most were smaller like quarter size, but at least a hundred like this. I took my revenge on it's cousin the sea nettle by popping a few of the Man-A-Wars. The smaller ones don't seem to have a stinger as I picked it up thinking it was something else at first. Very odd seeing so many dead at once.

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

I think it might be seasonal, pretty much any time I've seen them, its because they were washed up on the beach in great numbers. I rarely see them in the water, thankfully. One of my non-diving buddies who's my age, still has a scar on his back from when he got stung as a little boy.

The top of them I believe acts like a sail, so I'm guessing the South winds and a high tide drive them up on the beach more than anything they are doing on their own accounts.

 

[tbird0041]

i assume they are all pretty much dead when they get stuck like that....have u ever seen one still alive on the beach

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Its hard to tell if a jellyfish is alive when its on the beach...

 

[beachgeek]

They were all over the beach behind the dive shop too mixed with piles and piles of seaweed... Just part of the life and death of a jelly fish I guess

 

[Sailor612]

Like many jellyfish, they don't completely control their direction of movement (they are planktonic). Many of them are controlled by currents. When it comes to Man-Of-Wars, they are mainly controlled by the wind because they float and have such a large surface area exposed to the wind.

Another cool thing about the phylum "Cnidarians" (which includes man-of-war, box jellies, the jellies we see floating around in the summer with the 4 rings inside, common jellies, sea anemones, soft corals, sea fans...) is that they actually have sensory devices used for balance called "statocysts"

I don't know a lot about the reproduction "time frame" of man-of-wars, but when jellyfish reproduce, they reproduce in LARGE numbers (as we all see during the summer-time)!

Kinda neat to see the way the ocean operates, huh?! Like beachgeek (is that carlos?) said, "part of the life and death of a jellyfish!" Thats just one specific animal in the ocean...thats what interests me so much about Marine Biology!!!!!

I have some microscope pics that i'll post of the life cycle of the jellyfish that we always see floating around in the summer, Aurelia, if someone can tell me how to add pics....they are pretty cool and show why there are SO many of them all at once!

 

[Hetland]

man-of-wars are actually four symbiotic creatures that depend upon each other for survival. the "sail" is separate from the tentacles and the has no mechanism for stinging.

all jellyfish (and man o' wars) must DIE!

 

[MRXRAY]

It was unbelievably pleasurable to pop a few!

man-of-wars are actually four symbiotic creatures that depend upon each other for survival. the "sail" is separate from the tentacles and the has no mechanism for stinging.

all jellyfish (and man o' wars) must DIE!

 

[beachgeek]

understandable, I still have scars across my abdomen from getting raked by one about 10 years ago. Nasty little creatures, looked like I had 3 or 4 long scratches bleeding across my stomach, not a fun experience.....