Pyrosome at Columbia Shallow.

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scrane

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Boise, ID.
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Yesterday, 6/8 we sighted and got a good look at a Pyrosome at Columbia shallow at around 25', free floating 5' above the bottom. It was about 6' long, open at one end and tapered at the other, 10" in diameter, with a wall thickness of about 3/8" and pink in color. It would fold and flutter in current, but regain its cylindrical shape in calm water.
 
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I think that is what the Humann book calls a Venus Girdle.

Dave
 
picture? never seen one....
 
No
I think that is what the Humann book calls a Venus Girdle.

Dave
No, this one was cylindrical, looked like a airport wind sock, seemed to actively reinflate after being disturbed. Jose from Dive With Martin gave it a good look and said he'd never seen one before.

pyrosome - Bing video

We saw one about like this.
 
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They are very cool - I've seen them a dozen or so times since i've had my shop
 
No

No, this one was cylindrical, looked like a airport wind sock, seemed to actively reinflate after being disturbed. Jose from Dive With Martin gave it a good look and said he'd never seen one before.

pyrosome - Bing video

We saw one about like this.


Yes the Venus Girdle look exactly like that you described. In my 25 years there I've only seen one and challenged Paul Humann himself who described it perfectly to me.

I'm not sure how to quantify luck… but you and I are lucky.


Dave Dillehay
 
Yes the Venus Girdle look exactly like that you described. In my 25 years there I've only seen one and challenged Paul Humann himself who described it perfectly to me.

I'm not sure how to quantify luck… but you and I are lucky.


Dave Dillehay

I'm certain that I've seen these as shown in scrane's video at least a handful of times if not once or twice a year - in the 5-6' length range - not the giant ones. Clearly an interesting and rare find, but they are around. A very common one is this type below:

salp-LP.jpg
 
Christi, that looks more like a salp chain, which is a planktonic tunicate
 
From my reading, the Pyrosome is a planktonic truncate also, but not at all like the the object shown in Christy's picture. The video I posted was lifted from YouTube and is a good representation of the thing we sighted. It had no featuers outside of its shape, size, and color.
Again, acording to my limited reading, the Venus Girdle is a Comb Jelly that is ribbon like and not tubular, although regional and individual namings can vary.

Venus girdle - Wikipedia

Everything I've seen and read points me to a Pyrosome as what we saw! :)
 
@scrane - yes the type that you saw I’ve only seen a handful of times in all of my years diving here (20+\- total and 16+ having my operation) - and they’ve been anywhere from 2-6ft in length.

Very cool that you saw one!!

The other that I posted a picture of (borrowed from google) is a very common sighting - they are much “skinnier” and are usually 5-12” in length

I have never seen a Venus girdle so Intrust Dave’s claim of only seeing one in all of his years here.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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