Tag Archives: algae bloom

Sea Salps Are Back!

Sea Salps have returned. There is a bunch at Niles Beach currently. Write if you see them at your favorite beach.

Luminescent Sea Salps was filmed at night at a dock on Rocky Neck in the underwater lights of the FV Hot Tuna.

Sea salps are warm ocean water creatures, exploding in population during algae blooms. With beating heart, notochcord, and gills they are more closely evolutionarily linked to humans than to jellyfish. Sea salps are individual creatures that through asexual reproduction, can form linear chains up to fifteen feet long!

Salps are planktonic (free floating) members of the subphylum Tunicata. Tunicates get their name from the unique outer covering or “tunic,” which acts as an exoskeleton. The sea salp’s tunic is translucent and gelatinous; in some species it is tough and thick.

LUMINESCENT SEA SALPS AT GOOD HARBOR BEACH!

Piping Plover Ambassador Deb Brown shares that Good Harbor Beach is currently inundated with Sea Salps. Please write and let us know if you are seeing Sea Salps at other locations on Cape Ann. Thank you!

About six years ago, after a warm summer, and storm, they were everywhere on Cape Ann. Luminescent Sea Salps was filmed at night at a dock on Rocky Neck in the underwater lights of the FV Hot Tuna.

Sea salps are warm ocean water creatures, exploding in population during algae blooms. With beating heart, notochcord, and gills they are more closely evolutionarily linked to humans than to jellyfish. Sea salps are individual creatures that through asexual reproduction, can form linear chains up to fifteen feet long!

Salps are planktonic (free floating) members of the subphylum Tunicata. Tunicates get their name from the unique outer covering or “tunic,” which acts as an exoskeleton. The sea salp’s tunic is translucent and gelatinous; in some species it is tough and thick.

LUMINESCENT SEA SALPS

These salps were filmed several years ago and we have been wondering, has anyone seen salps yet this year? I’ve been checking but have yet to see. Please email (kimsmithdesigns@hotmail.com) and let us know if you do, and where they were spotted. Thank you!

The salps were filmed in Gloucester’s inner harbor and had a luminous appearance in the blue lights of the fishing boat Hot Tuna, the largest boat in the Wicked Tuna fleet. I think the song “La Luna” by Lucy Schwartz adds to the magical movement of the salps and other creatures in the glowing blue (so sorry to Captain Ott for startling him while hanging over the edge of the dock to film the salps at the rear of his boat.)

Sea salps are warm ocean water creatures, exploding in population during algae blooms. With beating heart, notochcord, and gills they are more closely evolutionarily linked to humans than to jellyfish. Sea salps are individual creatures that through asexual reproduction, can form linear chains up to fifteen feet long!

Salps are planktonic (free floating) members of the subphylum Tunicata. Tunicates get their name from the unique outer covering or “tunic,” which acts as an exoskeleton. The sea salp’s tunic is translucent and gelatinous; in some species it is tough and thick.