Bay Nature’s Ask the Naturalist column is about the “thousands of 10-inch wiggly pink sausages” recently spotted on Drakes Beach in Northern California’s Point Reyes National Seashore. Despite the common name “𝘗𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘴 fish” floating about, Urechis Taupo is actually a kind of marine worm.
Formally known as fat innkeeper worm, an expert believes a recent storm forced the worms out of their underwater homes and carried them to the beach -leaving them exposed to predators.
This 10-inch marine creature looks like a ‘pink sausage’ and creates U-shaped burrows in mud or sand that it leaves behind for other animals to move in – hence its name ‘innkeeper’.
The sea of these ‘𝘗𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘴 𝘍𝘪𝘴𝘩’’ was spotted by biologists Ivan Parr on December 6 after a storm hit the area.
‘The same phenomenon has been reported over the years at Pajaro Dunes, Moss Landing, Bodega Bay, and Princeton Harbor,’ Parr wrote for Bay Nature.
