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By-the-wind-sailor
November 7, 2013 11:51 pm
A short walk on a Tuesday afternoon on Holywell Beach west of Newquay: dark, bleak, with a bit of rain and a lot of wind. The upside was that we had the beach pretty much to ourselves. Holywell is named after a well in a cave (see here), and I was quite curious to see it. Unfortunately, although we had a look in some smaller crevices, we seemed to have missed the main cave…Ah well, a good excuse to go back some time.
No rock pools here, but there was some good beach combing to do with this stormy sea. For the first time I found the By-the-wind-sailor Velella velella, a Siphonophoran: a colony of specialized polyps, with short tentacles underneath and a little sail on top. They are related to the Portuguese Man-of-War. These organisms live on the open ocean, but can be blown onto shores in storms (mass stranding are common on the West Coast of the USA):
The pollution of our seas with plastics is a big problem and becomes very apparent when surveying the strandline. Depressing stuff:
Finally, some washed up crates with a Common goose barnacle Lepas anatifera attached:
Posted by An Bollenessor
Categories: cnidarians, crustaceans, stranded
Tags: By-the-wind-sailor, Common goose barnacle, Holywell Bay, Lepas anatifera, plastic, pollution, Siphonophoran, Velella velella
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A short walk on a Tuesday afternoon on Holywell Beach west of Newquay: dark, bleak, with a bit of rain and a lot of wind. The upside was that we had the beach pretty much to ourselves. Holywell is named after a well in a cave (see here), and I was quite curious to see it. Unfortunately, although we had a look in some smaller crevices, we seemed to have missed the main cave…Ah well, a good excuse to go back some time.
No rock pools here, but there was some good beach combing to do with this stormy sea. For the first time I found the By-the-wind-sailor Velella velella, a Siphonophoran: a colony of specialized polyps, with short tentacles underneath and a little sail on top. They are related to the Portuguese Man-of-War. These organisms live on the open ocean, but can be blown onto shores in storms (mass stranding are common on the West Coast of the USA):
This is my local beach and although exposed it is not bad for rockpooling! Definately come back sometime and check out the Holy well its beautiful!
I found a fair few by the wind sailors there myself over the last few days – I remember a mass stranding in Cornwall in 2003 (i think it was ) when every beach from st Ives to Padstow had huge snow drift like piles of Velella at the top of the beach – amazing to witness!! (also pretty smelly) Matt
By Matt Slater on November 13, 2013 at 1:12 pm
[…] a blueish thing that would have seemed unnatural, maybe a plastic piece of flotsam. It was only for AnBollenessor’s recent post that I knew this could be a By-the-wind-sailor and I went to investigate. Surely it was one, very […]
By Lucky Rockpooling trip with small and large surprises | Irish Rockpool Aquarium Adventures on November 13, 2013 at 6:45 pm
Nice post tthanks for sharing
By Dale Garner on October 19, 2024 at 7:53 pm