Portuguese man o’ war jellyfish washed up on coastline
THE arrival of ex Hurricane Ophelia was preceded by swarms of Portuguese man o’ war jellyfish, according to Karin Dubsky of Coastwatch Europe which is based in Gorey.
Karin said the Portuguese man o’ war are colonial animals which look like colourful lopsided jellyfish with long twin like blue tentacles with very nasty venom sting like the best of them.
They hit the Cork coast first, then Waterford and Wexford with roughly one man o’ war every 10 metres along the Courtown to Ballymoney stretch the day before Hurricane Ophelia.
‘On Sunday many Coastwatchers went out and looked at the shore, especially soft shores which were deemed vulnerable like the Windy Hole at Tacumshin lake. This was organised by the Surfshack Curracloe. They also did a massive litter clean up to compare with the aftermath of the Hurricane.
‘In North Wexford the Portuguese man o’ war were replaced by a tide line carpet of dying animal life from deeper water as well as dislodged seaweeds with gulls feasting on the bodies. Where animals were alive people were throwing them back or taking them for the pot. Picture by Paddy Houlihan.
‘This was reported from Blackwater, Morriscastle, Courtown, Ballymoney and Kilmichael head. It included brittle stars and starfish, sea mice, live shellfish -mussels, little queenies, razor shell, whelks and sand gapers. The most unusual seashell for the Wexford coast was a large heavy Islandic Cyprina Arctica islandica found by Cliona Green on Ballymoney beach. While broken by the waves, the flesh was still there.
‘This is the longest lived mollusc we know and as this one is so heavy, Coastwatch hopes to get it aged. This is the last surviving species of the family Arcticidae that dates back to the 135-65 million years ago and while there were some old records in the South Irish sea, there haven’t been any recent one.
‘We would like beach combers to look out for this shell and if intact or even better closed contact Coastwatch. From feedback we got, there are also more small Octopi than we have ever recorded after any storm.
‘Another disturbing aspect of the storm were the dogfish and ray/skate fish eggs washed up still attached to the bryozoan lawn torn off the seafloor by the waves.’