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Giant Invasion Of Critters Enters Irish Sea Heading South
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22-11-2007 1:10am#1Its a dense 10 square mile 35 ft deep swarm of jellyfish. They are heading for Dublin as I write . !!! They are numbered in the "Billions" .
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/7106631.stm"The sea was red with these jellyfish and there was nothing we could do about, it, absolutely nothing," he said.
They can smell the 'tasty' ****e from the liffey from thousands of miles away and have converged from all over the Atlantic to engorge themselves. The relative heat of the Liffey will also be a factor.
Mind ya if someone told the skangers that they are hallucinogenic and give a 'dedly buzz' as the Dubs would always say
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn12235-jellyfish-swarms-threaten-mediterranean-beach-bums.htmlPelagia noctiluca grows up to 10 centimeters wide, and is sometimes also called the nightlight jellyfish because it produces a blue-green luminescent mucus, most often seen as a glow in ships' wakes. But its more common name, mauve stinger, reflects the species' most noticeable effect on people.
Mauve stingers normally live in the open ocean, so they are often seen around offshore islands such as the Balearics. But they approach mainland beaches in late summer when rainfall drops, and freshwater runoff into coastal seas diminishes, making inshore waters more salty and suited to jellyfish.
Recent droughts have meant saltier inshore waters, meaning these jellyfish have been showing up on Mediterranean beaches in growing numbers in the last few years.
Numbers increasing
The large numbers of mauve stingers off the Balearic Islands were filmed by the Spanish marine conservation organisation Oceana at depths of 130 metres, using an uncrewed, remote-controlled submarine.
The group has also seen swarms of them elsewhere in the western Mediterranean, including the Aeolian Islands north of Sicily.
Ricardo Aguilar, a marine scientist with Oceana, says the jellyfish accumulate naturally as a result of being swept together by ocean currents. But he thinks their overall numbers are increasing.
"Normally the jellyfish die off over the winter," Aguilar told New Scientist from aboard the group's research catamaran, the Oceana Ranger, off the Balearic Islands. "But in 2006 we saw them as late as October and November. They may have bred all year."
Marine imbalance
Aguilar thinks the warming of the Mediterranean waters has favoured the jellyfish. So has the decimation of their predators, such as sunfish, trigger fish and loggerhead turtles, by fishing vessels.0
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