On this morning 's walk on Pawleys Island, we found the beach strewn with the carcasses of hundreds of small blue colored creatures.
Their upper 'body' structure was gelatinous and roughly an inch in diameter
and was surrounded by what looks suspiciously like tentacles?
Hmmm ? Could this be a form of Jelly fish???
A scan of the internet solved the mystery.
The creature was a Porpita porpita. Porpita porpita, "commonly known as the blue button, is a marine organism consisting of a colony of hydroids.found in tropical waters from California to the tropical Pacific, and Indian ocean. The species has made its way through the Suez canal and is now populating the tropical waters of the Gulf of Mexico
It is often mistaken for a jellyfish, but although jellyfish and the
blue buttons are part of the same the blue button is part of the
phylum (Cnidaria), the blue button is part of the class Hydrozoa.
It lives on the surface of the sea and consists of two main
parts: the float and the hydroid colony. The hard golden-brown float is
round, almost flat, and about one inch wide. The hydroid colony, resembles tentacles like
those of the jellyfish. Each strand has numerous branchlets, each of which ends in knobs of stinging cells called nematocysts. The blue button sting is not powerful but may cause irritation to human skin It is often mistaken for a jellyfish, but although jellyfish and the blue buttons are part of the same the blue button is part of the phylum (Cnidaria), the blue button is part of the class Hydrozoa."*
Apparently the passive little drifter has been using the Gulf Stream to expand its territory to the tropical waters of the Caribbean and the Atlantic coastline touched by the Gulf stream e.g., Florida, and now South Carolina
*More information is available on the Porpita at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porpita_porpita
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