Thousands of glowing translucent pickles of the sea might be the ‘new normal’ off the Oregon and Pacific Northwest coast. Curiously, Oregon, known for its love of pickling and fermenting foods, is finding its waters invaded by countless pickle-like strange sea creatures. They stick in large quantities to fishermens’ and researchers’ nets and fishermen even find them stuck to their hooks.
These mostly sausage-sized pickles are pyrosomes or “fire body” in Greek and are able to glow a blue-green light. Observers reported seeing the powerful bioluminescence from up to 328 feet (100 meters) in clear water. When they light up, it can start a chain reaction as the other individuals in the colony or nearby pyrosomes light a call and response.
In 1849, Victorian zoologist Thomas Huxley compared the bioluminescence to moonlight.
“I have just watched the moon set in all her glory and looked at those lesser moons, the beautiful Pyrosoma, shining like white-hot cylinders in the water.”
These Pickles Can Grow to Giant Size
In the deep ocean, Pyrosomes can grow so large divers could swim inside them!
Video by Ultimate Mysterious about Pyrosomes:
Each Colony Could Live Indefinitely
Today, people call them sea pickles or cucumbers (not to be confused with actual sea cucumbers). Another nickname some call them is “cockroach of the sea.” Imagine a 30-foot-long cockroach! But most of them do indeed resemble a gelatinous pickle, complete with the bumps.
Inside each bump, an individual organism called a zooid makes its home. Thus, each one is actually a colony of thousands of multi-celled animals. They live together inside the relative safety of the gelatinous matrix called a tunic. Unlike a sea cucumber that lays on the bottom, these drift through the water column to filter out their food: phytoplankton, bacteria, and poop particles.
Unless all the members of the colony die, the pyrosome can theoretically continue living indefinitely.
Pyrosomes by Deep Marine Scenes:
Why Are Glowing Pickles Invading?
Not that long ago, it was unusual to see a pyrosome, but now the waters of the Northwest Coast and Alaska are teeming with them. Most are smaller than two feet long.
In 2017, scientists started seeing a pickle swarm after three years of unusually warm water.
At the time, many had never heard of them. But now, one scientist suggests the glowing pickles might be “the new normal.” On the other hand, they aren’t yet certain why they are appearing in such numbers or if they could suddenly disappear again.
“Now we’re seeing this mix (of warm and cold communities). I don’t know if that’s lingering effects to the marine heatwave, or if this is maybe the new normal. We need to just keep monitoring, see what happens,” Jennifer Fisher, a zooplankton ecologist with the National Oceanic Atmospheric Association.
A ‘blob’ of strangely warm water appeared in the Pacific in 2013, splitting into three blobs before the pickles started showing up. As plentiful as they are, one would hope struggling sea life could utilize them as food, but it appears they have little nutritional value and are not consumed much. On the other hand, there have been few reports of fish regurgitating them or finding small ones inside fish and whales. Some reports suggest lobsters, jellyfish, and sea turtles may eat them.
If touched, pyrosomes are harmless, but if they die off in large numbers, it could kill other sea life. On the other hand, since they stick to fishermen’s nets, they may inadvertently help thwart the constant over-fishing of the seas. So far, with the warming water, these creatures are one of the few that seem to be thriving, unlike coral, which is also made up of colonies of tiny animals.
Video by KOIN 6 about the pyrosome invasion in Oregon:
A New Bioluminescent Gene
In 2020, scientists reported that pyrosomes may have a newly discovered gene for bioluminescence. It was a first for a group that includes vertebrates, the chordate phylum. As a chordate, these strange cucumbers are more closely related to people than other glowing creatures like fireflies or jellyfish.
Who knows what else scientists may discover about these odd creatures? Pyrosomes are part of a family of sea creatures known as tunicates or “sea squirts.” In 2022, scientists discovered that sea squirts could contain substances with anti-aging properties. So, perhaps these glowing pickles of the sea might hold more important properties to be discovered.
You can see a pyrosome glowing in the video below by CMS Video Feed:
Featured image: Screenshots via YouTube
