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Hermaphroditic Sea Squirts Invade Long Island Sound

The AP reports that blob-like creatures known as Sea Squirts are invading the Long Island Sound.

The researchers say they have found colonies of invasive sea squirts, blob-shaped animals that reproduce easily, on the floor of the sound.

They believe this variety of sea squirt, known as didemnum, arrived on the hulls of ships from Asia. They have no known predators.

"This thing has the potential for causing significant economic impact when it attaches to the floor of the Sound, where it blankets and suffocates shellfish and lobsters," said Ivar Babb, director of UConn's Undersea Research Center at Avery Point in Groton.

They sound like a real menace and they are listed here in the USDA's invasive species index. Ivar Babb sure doesn't like them.

"This thing is ugly," Babb said. "It has no socially redeeming virtues."

That's pretty harsh but we don't like these lowlife good-for-nothing sea squirts either if they are suffocating the delicious New England seafood.

Posted on May 31, 2006

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