Beaches from San Diego to Orange County have been invade by tiny red tuna crabs . C of thousands of these crabby person have washed ashore due to warmer ocean temperatures , which are carrying them further northerly than common .
“ They are all still alive . They are in the surfline and swim up , ” Donna Kalez , managing director of Dana Wharf Sportfishing , who spotted the unusual sight , toldOC Register . “ Once they get this tight to shoring , they ca n’t go anywhere , so they just wash in . They are n’t potent enough to swim out , ”
While the vast majority of the red crabs have been dying , some have been washed back out to sea alive .
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
These red tuna crabs , Pleuroncodes planipes , usually dwell the west coast of Baja California , Gulf of California , and the California Current . According to theScripps Institution of Oceanography , though they are commonly refer to as ruddy crabs , they are not ‘ true crabs . ’ This species usually live in thewater columnfrom larvae to maturity , but some adult crabs have been known to survive just above the seafloor and move to the surface to feed on phytoplankton . They ’re typically around three inches ( 7.5 centimeters ) in length .
" This is in spades a warm - piss index , " Linsey Sala , collection manager for the Pelagic Invertebrates Collection at the University of California , toldReuters . " Whether it ’s directly related to to El Nino [ sic ] or other oceanographic conditions is not certain . "
The first question on many people ’s nous was can we corrode them ? There were reports that some citizenry were taking the red tuna beef home , but theScripps Institution of Oceanographyadvises against it “ due to unknown toxin that may be present within the crabs . ” In particular , the scientists mark the biggest toxic algae blush in the Pacific Ocean , which stretches from California north to Washington state , though they ’re unsure how it might be related to red tuna crabs .
These red tuna crabs are n’t the only fauna that have been spotted along the coast this year ; the OC Register has reported sighting of “ spicy , jellyfish - like creature known as by - the - wind sailors ” and “ tropic Pisces the Fishes like yellowtail and bluefin tuna . ”
