Strange, see-through “jumping sticks” turning up on Florida’s Space Coast have sparked curiosity among beachgoers, with many wondering exactly what the tiny creatures are.
The odd sight of dozens of 1-inch, wriggling organisms scattered near the Indialantic Boardwalk stopped one beach walker in her tracks, according to FOX 35 WOFL.
“They were flopping around. They were very active, and that’s what caught my eye,” Diana Duby told WOFL.
At first, Duby suspected the transparent beach creatures might be baby eels — and marine experts say that guess was not too far from the truth. Dr. Todd Osborne, a marine life specialist at the University of Florida’s Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience, weighed in on the discovery.
Osborne told WOFL the tiny animals belong to a larval group known as leptocephalus.
“That little clear thing — that could be an eel, a tarpon, several different tarpon, bonefish, ladyfish,” Dr. Osborne said.
“They all fall under this class, the same order and they all have the same growth morphology as larvae, which is really cool.”
Because the organisms are still in such an early stage of development, experts say pinpointing their exact species would be extremely difficult without additional testing and closer study.
One person’s chance encounter with the drifting, translucent organisms highlights how much remains unknown about Florida’s coastal marine ecosystems.
“We’ve been cataloging things in the ocean for a couple hundred years, and we still have no idea about what is going on out there,” Dr. Osborne told WOFL.
