Jelly Blobs Are Taking Over Myrtle Beach. They’re Not Jellyfish, ‘They’re Our Cousins’.

Little blobs are everywhere along the coastline in Myrtle Beach. Many people are under the impression that these gel-like creatures are some sort of jellyfish. Well, they’re wrong. In fact, little do these beachgoers know, they’re actually walking right past their cousins.

Wait, what?

The clear gelatinous blobs are called salps. These marine animals resemble the top of a jellyfish and have the same characteristics minus the tentacles. Like jellyfish, they basically just drift around the ocean which is why they wash ashore. These simple creatures are actually classified as chordates. That’s the same class that humans are in.

The Jelly Blobs Taking Over Myrtle Beach Are Not Jellyfish

In an interview with Myrtle Beach Online, Coastal Carolina University marine science professor Juliana Harding explained that salps actually are “our cousins” by extension of being in the chordate class. Now this is a very loose connection. Being in the same phylum is where the roots end, but as Harding revealed, in the science world salps and humans are… family?

To be in this classification, the characteristics that need to be met include a dorsal nerve cord, a pharyngeal slit, and a post-anal tail. All of these are present in embryos and eventually evolve into a spine. Basically, these gel-like things are pretty similar to human embryos.

As for the people of Myrtle Beach who are now inundated with these zooplankton salps, there’s no reason to fret. They don’t present any danger, unlike a jellyfish. They don’t possess the ability to sting, so theoretically, anyone could pick one up if you’re really feeling the urge.

Eventually, salps get washed back into the water as the current rises. The reason for the influx has to do with the strong winds that have pushed the currents inland. As a result, we’re having a bit of a weird family reunion. It’s a small world after all!