SC104 An object out of place. Not an object but a living creature.

While walking at the edge of the sea at Horsey on the east coast of Norfolk we came across 100s if not 1000s of these little jelly 'blobs' left stranded on the shoreline by the ebbing tide. They are in fact a member of the group of zooplankton and are called Pleurobrachia pileus or sea gooseberries. As you can see each organism is small, but they were present in such large numbers that they were very noticeable.

They have most likely ended up on the beaches due to recent strong winds. They tend to be in high abundance at this time of year in any case due to the increased amount of phytoplankton and very small zooplankton plankton (their main food source) in surface water in the spring and summer, when the days get longer and the sun is higher in the sky. They can survive if they are returned to the sea quickly, but it would have been a mammoth task so to do.

They grow up to about 2.5cm long.