Grunion: during the full moon, clouds of these fish are washed ashore (10 photos)

Just imagine: night, sea, full moon. And then, out of nowhere, a fish appears on the shore. The wave pulls it back into the sea, but it stubbornly moves forward, towards the land. A minute - and there are several dozen such fish on the coast.





A couple more minutes, and the entire sand is strewn with tiny fish! They wriggle, persistently crawling away from their native element! What is this?! And why do they crawl out on a full moon?!



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So, meet the Californian grunion. A small silver fish with mother-of-pearl scales. It can be found exclusively off the western coast of North America: from the American state of California to the Mexican state of Southern California. They have the entire Pacific Ocean at their disposal! Swim wherever you want, migrate, develop! But the fish stubbornly cling to the patch of land on which they live. After all, grunions do not reproduce in water, like all normal fish, but on land.





What do you mean, everyone else reproduces in water?! Then why do we bother?!

The madness begins in March, when the water warms up and the tides become higher. The height of the waves correlates with the lunar cycle, so the grunions have to adapt. On the 16th-18th lunar day, when the tide reaches its peak, thousands of fish swim to the shore. They wait for the night. And then, in complete darkness, here and there, the first timid grunion scouts come ashore. Their most important task is to assess the situation.



Guys, it seems safe here. There's only one thing that bothers me: the guy with the camera.

If the pioneers are satisfied, hundreds, thousands of grunions will follow them! The sandy shore will turn into a living writhing carpet of fish! In this chaos, the females bury their tails in the sand and spawn right there, in the hole. The males swirl around the beautiful fish-breeders and pour their milt on the sand - sometimes there are so many of them that the entire beach turns white.



When you decide to have an unusual date, but everything doesn't go according to plan.

The fish have a couple of minutes for everything, after which they vitally need to return to the sea. Grunions have no adaptations for staying on the shore for a long time - each spawning is mortally dangerous. But the little fish rush to the shore without fear! And so on until the entire school of grunions has spawned.



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An exhausting night adventure with the risk of gluing your flippers together on land does not stop the grunions. In 2-3 weeks they come for more! Everything repeats itself like a notebook: waves, scouts, holes, a little hypoxia and more waves. In one summer, grunions will come ashore to spawn at least 5 times.



Honey, come on a date with me? Imagine the romance: you, me, bridges and thousands of our relatives writhing in ecstasy!

It is not surprising that after such a love marathon many fish die. Some remain on the shore, not waiting for the saving wave. Some die from exhaustion: the creation of eggs and milt, the fight with the atmosphere and waves - all this is a heavy burden on the fragile organism of small fish. Therefore, the life expectancy of grunions is quite low - only 3-5 years.



A sea of ​​fish. Literally.

Do you think this is more than compensated by the number of fry, because the parents try so hard to hide them? No! The fry have to go through three stages of the struggle for survival! The first begins immediately after their parents lay eggs. Crustaceans, insects, worms, birds, mammals - seafood lovers have long since learned about the fish caches. As soon as the tide goes out, they all rush to the beach - to dig up the nutritious treasure.



What does this story teach us? That you can't protect children from everything, even if you spend your life trying to do it!

If the clutch is lucky and has not been reached, the fry will appear only when they feel water above their heads. They will leave for the sea with the next tide. They have a month to choose the right moment - in laboratory conditions, the eggs remained viable for up to 34 days. Did you manage to reach the water? Congratulations, baby grunion, you are at the finish line! Now all that remains is to survive in the ocean as a microscopic larva. This is a mission from the "impossible" series.



Water alone is not enough for the larvae to hatch. In order for the fry to wake up, they need to create high tide conditions: the rustling of sand. Without this, they will not hatch from the eggs and will die.

People have already realized that the population of grunions is slowly disappearing, so catching fish during spawning is strictly prohibited. You can freely come to the beach and admire the fish fighting for a place under the moon, but you cannot touch the actors themselves or interfere with them in any way. Well, outside the breeding season, fish are caught in small quantities and sold at local markets.