{"id":292853,"date":"2026-04-30T08:40:42","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T08:40:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/292853\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T08:40:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T08:40:42","slug":"thousands-of-mysterious-blue-creatures-wash-up-on-san-francisco-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/292853\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands of Mysterious Blue Creatures Wash Up on San Francisco Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEED TO KNOW<\/p>\n

Thousands of sea creatures known as Velella washed ashore near San Francisco\u2019s Golden Gate Bridge on Monday, April 27<\/p>\n

The jellyfish-like creatures are deep blue with triangular sails that help them travel across the ocean\u2019s surface<\/p>\n

Beachgoers have seen Velella washed up on several beaches along California’s Central Coast in recent days<\/p>\n

Thousands of bright blue jellyfish-like sea creatures have washed up along the beaches of San Francisco.<\/p>\n

The species, known as Velella and also called \u2018by-the-wind sailors,’ emerged across San Francisco’s Baker Beach, reaching the coast along the Golden Gate Bridge, on Monday, April 27, The San Francisco Chronicle<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n

According to the National Park Service (NSP)<\/a>, Velella typically live offshore in the Northern Hemisphere and are related to jellyfish, sea anemones, corals and hydroids. The striking creatures have a firm, flat, oval-shaped body about four inches long, with a two-inch-high triangular \u201csail\u201d attached.<\/p>\n

The sighting comes as beachgoers have spotted the jellyfish-like creatures washed up along the Golden State region, stretching from Del Norte County in the north to San Diego County in the south, The Sacramento Bee<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n

\"Velella<\/p>\n

Velella jellyfish (stock image)
Credit: Getty<\/p>\n

Witness Tim Tune shared photos on Facebook<\/a> on Monday of Velella piling up in their thousands along Baker Beach underneath the Golden Gate Bridge.<\/p>\n

The striking sea creatures \u201clive on the surface of the open ocean\u201d and \u201care usually deep blue in color, but their most obvious feature is a small stiff sail that catches the wind and propels them over the surface of the sea,\u201d the University of Santa Barbara told The Sacramento Bee.<\/p>\n

Wind conditions are the main factors causing Velellas to become stranded on the beach.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the prevailing winds shift, such as during a storm, the Velella are driven towards the coast, where they often are stranded on beaches in great numbers,\u201d said the NSP.<\/p>\n

\u201cDangling from its body are numerous blue tentacles which contain stinging cells (cnidocysts, also called nematocysts) to help capture the Velella’s food,\u201d the NSP continued. \u201cVelella’s stinging cells are rarely harmful to humans\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Baker<\/p>\n

Baker Beach in San Francisco
Credit: Getty<\/p>\n

In mid-April, the jellyfish-like sea creatures were also spotted along the coast of San Luis Obispo County and La Jolla and Pacific Beach and Coronado in San Diego, Fox 5 San Diego<\/a> and the San Luis Obispo Tribune<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n

Never miss a story \u2014 sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter<\/a> to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.<\/p>\n

PEOPLE has reached out to the NSP for comment.<\/p>\n

Read the original article on People<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEED TO KNOW Thousands of sea creatures known as Velella washed ashore near San Francisco\u2019s Golden Gate Bridge…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292854,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[124748,11917,42334,124749,101,8209,103,102,116019,104,106,105,124750],"class_list":["post-292853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-baker-beach","tag-golden-gate-bridge","tag-national-park-service","tag-nsp","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-chronicle","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sea-creatures","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-velella-jellyfish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}