![\"Grunion](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784068317_811_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nOne of the most magical and underrated natural wonders of the West is about to unfold across California beaches.<\/p>\n
For four-day periods every year from March to August, legions of small, silver fish called grunion ride the waves ashore for mating rituals, beginning on the nights of the full and new moons. <\/p>\n
But this isn\u2019t just any fish spawning.<\/p>\n
First, the females bury themselves halfway in the sand with only their heads sticking out and lay their eggs. Then, the males wriggle up and twist and wrap around them. It\u2019s a rare and mysterious orgy unfolding in the dead of night. And it\u2019s all out in the open for public viewing.<\/p>\n
For some SoCal families, watching the grunion run is an annual summer tradition. There have been several runs already this year, with sightings reported from La Jolla to Ventura. Another is expected to start tonight. <\/p>\n
When the grunions will be running:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Grunion mate on Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro on June 5, 2023. <\/p>\n
(Luis Sinco \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
This week\u2019s run is predicted go from Tuesday to Friday. <\/p>\n
The fish come up on the sand for about two hours at night, as the high tide starts to ebb, usually between 10pm and 2am. The second hour is when the spawning picks up.<\/p>\n
The second and third night of the four-night runs tend to be best to see grunion, according to CDFW. The first night, tonight, is the least predictable.<\/p>\n
The agency publishes a schedule<\/a> of what days and times to expect the ritual, based on moon cycles and the timing at San Pedro\u2019s Cabrillo Beach, a known grunion hotspot. <\/p>\n But it all varies. <\/p>\n \u201cThe further south that you go, the grunion tend to show up a little bit earlier, and if you go further to the north, they tend to show up a little bit later,\u201d said CDFW environmental scientist Malcolm Tunnell. \u201cWe don\u2019t fully understand this. They are a cryptic species.\u201d <\/p>\n Where to see them:<\/p>\n Grunion are a native species and only live off the coast of southern California and northern Mexico. Their usual range is from Santa Barbara to Baja California, although it has been shifting north<\/a> as climate change heats the oceans. <\/p>\n While you can expect to see grunion in SoCal, the exact beaches where they decide to spawn is something of a mystery, depending on the tides, the sands, and the conditions encountered by the scout fish grunion send out before they decide where to mate.<\/p>\n \u201cWe usually say, if it\u2019s a beach where there\u2019s surfing, they like the same surfing waves that people like,\u201d said Karen Martin, a professor of biology at Pepperdine University and leading grunion expert. \u201cBut really, any beach that has a nice, wide area where they can come ashore is a potential beach.\u201d<\/p>\n