She Wolf Warrior wrote:Aruni4 wrote:1. WHY WOULD ANYONE DESTROY THAT FOR A HOUSE??
2. So pretty...what are they? Will they sting me?
the area had some nice space so I guess they decided to make housing, and the pollution from the houses went into the ocean and killed everything off. Those are plankton, I believe, they are bioluminescent, they won't sting <33
I think that's my favorite horse so far hhhh
the glowy dudes are dinoflagellates, which are a type of protist. They can't do anything other than glow, they're literally just a clump of a few cells mushed together. Dinoflagellates are also what cause red tide

But yeah, they're totally harmless to swim in and whatnot.
The little protists are microscopic, but they can glow far brighter than their size should dictate. They glow when disturbed, so that's why they only look like they're glowing on the waves. It's a defense mechanism. Shrimp like to eat them, so they glow when they are being eaten. The glow attracts squid and fish, which then come over and eat the shrimp, thus saving fellow dinoflagellates. Yay science!
source: I teach bio II lab at a university
edit: I kayaked through bio bay in puerto rico. They would not let you swim in it in case you had stuff on your skin that could hurt them. However, where I live in FL pockets of these guys show up in the mangroves on the shorelines pretty frequently. It's very common to swim through them. There are even really cool vids on youtube of people surfing on glowing waves
