Saturday, March 23, 2019

It's been a while

 

It's been a while, but tonight (23 March 2019) we noticed our first By-the-wind Sailors (Velella velella) of 2019 washed up on the beach.  Most were no longer alive and colorless (like the one shown above), but one was still blue.  They were all ~3 cm (~1 inch) long.

at

3 comments:

  1. lngndvsMarch 26, 2019 at 9:43 PM

    Isn't this fairly small? Did you notice whether they were right or left handed?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jackie SonesMarch 27, 2019 at 5:57 AM

    Hi, Alan!

    Yes, this is fairly small. The largest Velella in this area are ~10 cm long, and the average size is probably more like 5-6 cm long (although I'd have to measure a lot more to be sure about that!).

    I remembered this post from 31 March 2015 has some information and thoughts about Velella size distributions:

    https://bodegahead.blogspot.com/2015/03/blue-beaches.html


    Jackie

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jackie SonesMarch 27, 2019 at 6:03 AM

    Whoops! Forgot to answer the "handed" question. These recent Velella were left-handed. I've only seen a right-handed Velella in Bodega Bay once before, back in May 2016:

    https://bodegahead.blogspot.com/2016/05/right-handed.html

    :) Jackie

    ReplyDelete