‘Wonders of the ocean’: Mysterious sea creature spotted in B.C. coastal waters
Global News
Steph Brulot and his brother made the discovery while snorkeling in the Salish Sea last weekend.
A unique sea creature has been spotted in the waters off Victoria’s Clover Point.
Steph Brulot and his brother made the discovery while snorkeling in the Salish Sea last weekend.
“I pretty quickly realized that it was something I had never seen before,” he said. “Yeah. It was pretty amazing.
“It had this like this dome-looking head that was looked like a jellyfish, probably about four or five or six inches long. And then it was probably about two feet long. (It had) this kind of chain-looking tail and I thought it was a jellyfish of some kind, but I’ve been proven wrong. They’re not jellyfish.”
Brulot posted photos of the sighting on a Facebook page called Field Naturalists of Vancouver Island and he got some help identifying what it was.
It turns out the mysterious creature was a siphonophore, a marine organism that falls under the class of hydrozoa.
It can grow to a length exceeding the blue whale and is rarely seen so close to the shore.
Dr. Anna Hall, a marine zoologist, said the sighting was an exciting one.