© Massimiliano Finzi/Getty Images
"There were arms everywhere," ecologist Drew Harvell told The Atlantic's Ed Yong last year. "It looked like a blast zone."
The dismal remains of these animals, who are usually capable of regenerating their own limbs, were strewn along the entire West Coast of North America, in one of the largest mass wildlife mortality events ever recorded. Over 20 species of sea stars were perishing.
In some areas, sunflower star (Pycnopodia helianthoides) populations dropped by an average of around 90 percent in weeks, a loss that saw this once common and abundant species vanish from most of its range in just a few years.
Comment: Mass mortality events caused by algae blooms are in the news more often recently, and the correlation of ocean anoxia with previous extinction level events is likely to be warning sign of what's to come:
- "A new phenomenon": Mass marine life die off in ANOTHER location in Russia's Kamchatka region
- Earth's expanding ocean anoxic zones and the correlation with periods of geologic upheaval
- Mysterious new invasive algae smothering Hawaii's coral reefs
- Neurotoxic algae that is poisonous to marine life and humans advancing along the Pacific coast
- Worldwide ocean anoxia driven by global cooling was possible factor in previous mass extinctions
Also check out SOTT radio's: