A long tail?

Remember all of the Purple Sea Snails (Janthina umbilicata) we found last year?  For example, review the posts from 20 January 2016 and 6 March 2016 (or scroll down to the bottom of this page and enter "janthina" in the search field to see all of the previous posts).

You might also recall that we found six Janthina on 24 January 2017.

And I haven't mentioned it on the blog, but I also found one individual on 13 March 2017.

We're continuing our surveys to document the "tail" of the distribution of observations associated with the 2015-2016 El Niño.  That is, how long do species likely associated with the El Niño continue to appear in northern California, even after El Niño conditions have ended?

Well, we found one Purple Sea Snail today (25 April 2017)...so the tail continues to lengthen:

 

Let me know if you encounter any of these little purple pelagic snails.  We'd love to hear about any other sightings this year.