It's dinner time! Thousands of gun jellyfish have filled the Cape Hatteras National Seashore to feast on red croaker larvae. (Photo courtesy of NPS)
Thousands of spherical cannon jellyfish (Stomolophus meleagris) have washed up along the coast of North Carolina in an event dubbed the “jellyfish congregation.”
Cape Hatteras National Park Service (NPS) staff captured the spectacle on Friday (October 14) and posted the photos on Facebook.
The “large mass” washed up on the northern edge of Ocracoke Island, one of the islands that make up the Outer Banks. The sudden influx of the soft, stingless jellyfish coincided with a spawning spawn of red croaker (Sciaenops ocellatus), a marine fish that is currently in the midst of its breeding season — the larvae of the fish are also a favorite delicacy for the jellyfish, according to the statement.
Resembling real cannonballs in both shape and size, the jellyfish average about 1 pound (450 grams) in weight and 10 inches (24 centimeters) in diameter, according to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. The species is one of the most common jellyfish along the southeastern coast.
Why were they thrown out now?
“Jellyfish rely on wind and currents to move around. Cooler water temperatures, as well as winds and currents, can cause them to wash up on shore,” the report said.
This year, conditions were particularly favorable: spawning redfish combined with cooler water created an abundance of seafood for hungry jellyfish, Newsweek reports.
“The reasons why blooms occur in some years and not in others, or why they are more abundant in some years, are related to environmental factors but are not fully understood,” Cheryl Lewis Ames, an associate professor of applied marine biology at the Graduate School of Agricultural Sciences at Tohoku University in Japan, told Newsweek. “Over several decades of jellyfish research, I have found that very few species of jellyfish show up exactly when you expect them to.”
Jennifer NalewickiSocial Links NavigationJournalist
Jennifer Nalewicki is a former Live Science staff writer and Salt Lake City-based journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, Scientific American, Popular Mechanics, and elsewhere. She covers a variety of science topics, from planet Earth to paleontology and archaeology, from health to culture. Before going freelance, Jennifer worked as an editor at Time Inc. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin.
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