Small blue sea creatures wash up near Dana Point and other Southern California beaches
As the fields of Antelope Valley continue to be filled with bright-orange poppies, Southern California beaches are having their own superbloom with thousands of navy blue creatures showing up on our shores.
While they closely resemble the Portuguese Man o' War and are closely related to jellyfish, the Velella velella — better known as by-the-wind sailor are actually hydroid polyps.
The flat, oval-shaped creatures live in the open ocean but wash up on California shores during the spring and early summer. The hand-sized organisms get their name from the sail protruding from the top of their bodies. They began arriving thanks to the strong winds propelling them from the deep seas to our sandy beaches in Dana Point, Manhattan Beach, Newport Beach and San Clemente.
While they have stinging tentacles, they mostly use them to catch their favorite prey — zooplankton and fish eggs. For the most part, they are relatively safe for humans to handle but it might be best to avoid their stingers as everyone's tolerance varies.
"If you see these on the beach, it's ok to hold them by their sails," said Nona Reimer, known as "Nona the Naturalist," in an Instagram post from Dana Wharf. "I would avoid touching the stinging sails. For most humans it doesn't hurt, but I wouldn't touch those stinging sails."
