Millions of Jellyfish-like 'Sailor' Creatures Invade West Coast Beaches
An invasion is afoot along beaches from Oregon to California: Millions of glassy purple, jellyfish-like sea creatures that look like sailboats have been washing ashore.
Known as "by-the-wind sailors," they typically live in the open ocean, but when warm water and storms draw them near shore, the wind blows them onto beaches, where they die in stinking piles.
"They sit at the surface of the ocean and have little sails," and their movement depends on which way the wind is blowing, said Richard Brodeur, a fishery biologist at NOAA Fisheries' Newport, Oregon, research station.
Most of the time off the coast of Oregon and California, the winds are blowing toward the South, into the open ocean, Peterson said. But when big storms sweep out of the southwest — like one that hit California two weeks ago — it blows these living flotillas onto the beaches, he said. There, they usually die, giving off a bad smell as they rot, he added.
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/weird-science/millions-jellyfish-sailor-creatures-invade-west-coast-beaches-n170986
= new reply since forum marked as read
they don't have spines 