People at the Oregon coast recently have been finding strange, semi-translucent objects that kind of look like pickles washed up on the shore, leaving them flabbergasted.
“There are dozens of these on Stonefield Beach. I’ve never seen them before. What are they?” one Facebook user posted.
“Strange jelly fish??” another asked.
But the “sea pickles” — that’s actually what they’re colloquially called — aren’t bizarre jellyfish. They’re pyrosomes, which are made up of colonies of multi-celled animals called zooids, the Seaside Aquarium told The Oregonian/OregonLive in an email.
The plankton-eating creatures can glow with bioluminescence, the aquarium added — lending them their scientific name Pyrosoma, which roughly translates to “fire body.”
Although they are most commonly found in seas and coasts near the equator, the species Pyrosoma atlanticum is known to wash ashore on Oregon’s coasts, the aquarium said.
Dolphins, bony fish and whales have been known to eat them. The aquarium said pyrosomes are not believed to be toxic to pets but that it’s probably best to keep domesticated animals from eating them.
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