Five Facts About Velella Velella
Spring has sprung, and that means you might have seen clear, thin, plastic-like specimens littering local beaches. But wait! That’s not litter you’re seeing. They’re Velella or by-the-wind sailors. What exactly are they? And how do they get here?
We put together five fascinating Velella velella facts that you can tell your friends and family the next time you’re at the beach. Just remember: Velella aren’t trash or plastic. So don’t pick them up during a cleanup.
What is a Velella velella or by-the-wind sailor?
Velella sort of look like a jellyfish, right? Turns out, they’re related to jellyfish but they’re not the same marine creature. Velella are free-floating hydrozoans (marine predators to which coral and jellyfish belong) that live on the surface of the ocean. They have a blob-like shape that can be about 1.5 inches to 3 inches in size as a full-grown adult.
Their firm disc-like body is blue to purple in color before it turns clear and brittle after washing up to shore and drying out on the beach. Velella have a small triangular S-shaped “sail” diagonally attached to its body. They also have short tentacles for feeding that hang down.
How do they make it onto the beach?
As its moniker may suggest, wind and storms bring these by-the-wind sailors to our shores. Their sails allow Velella to catch the wind and travel on ocean currents. While they don’t navigate using their sails, the direction of their sail is either angled left or right. The Wildlife Trusts reports that if a sail runs north-west to south-east, Velella will drift left of the wind direction. Sails that run south-west to north-east will force Velella to drift right of the wind direction.
Depending on wind conditions, thousands may get stranded on the beach where they eventually dry up.
How do Velella eat?
Velella use stinging tentacles to prey on plankton and fish eggs.
Can they sting you?
Velella are not known to be dangerous to humans. However, it’s wise to just look and not touch any living Velella that you come across.
Do they have predators?
Because Velella carry a toxin and offer very little meat to hungry animals, they have few predators. However, according to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, pelagic snails and nudibranchs are considered main predators.
The relationship between Velella and plastic
“The relationship between Velella velella and plastic is linked by their co-occurrence within ocean gyres, where floating objects (whether plastic debris or planktonic organisms) tend to accumulate due to slow, swirling currents,” says PBC Naturalist Lauren Linsmayer, Ph.D.
She goes on to add, “Think of the Garbage Patches in the middle of ocean gyres as a big soup of both marine life and plastics. While Velella are too small to ingest plastic themselves (that we know of), their predators such as sea turtles, albatross, and sunfish end up consuming both prey and plastic. This messy soup significantly complicates plastic cleanup efforts in the ocean, demanding methods that selectively remove debris without harming the delicate neustonic (floating) ecosystem that forms the base of the open ocean food web.”
As you can see, it’s all linked. Protecting marine life, even Velella, starts with you. We expect Velella to come and go during the next few months. Keep your eye out when you’re walking on the beach, surfing, or tidepooling.