(ORDO NEWS) — Bill Clements came across a rare creature 90 cm long while paddling. The rower swam almost 5 km from the shore and saw a strange organism in the water. Only his spine was visible.
Bill says that at first he thought it was someone’s gnawed spine or some unusual snake.
Out of curiosity, he decided to touch the creature. He didn’t know if it was dangerous for his life and was a little scared, but interest prevailed over common sense.
The man had a phone with him, he filmed an unknown person and continued swimming. Upon arrival at the shore, I decided to find out what it was.
Lifting the creature from the water, the man saw transparent flesh. These were separate glued plates. The length of the find is approximately 60-90 cm, and it turned out that it is a single organism, and not a colony that is connected to each other.
Later, the man found out that it was a sea salp. The creature, although similar to a jellyfish, has much more in common with a person. This invertebrate representative of the ocean fauna is absolutely safe for humans.
The fact that it was found so close to the shore and on the surface of the water is a unique case. Salps like to hide at the bottom of the oceans at great depths.
Salps pump ocean water through their bodies like jet engines. They need this not only for movement, but also for food.
They belong to the class of ascidians, so in biology they are closer to humans than to jellyfish. Such creatures grow very quickly, they can reach maturity 48 hours after birth.
They are very good for the environment because they remove CO2 from the atmosphere by eating tiny plants that sink to the bottom of the ocean. You can say that it is a natural filter that works 24/7.
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