The surf in San Diego county has been putting on quite a light show on recent evenings. The shore has been hit by a bout of “red tide,” a bloom of the dinoflagellate Lingulodinium polyedrum. The bad news is that this dinoflagellate can be toxic to fish and shellfish. The good news is that it is wildly bio-luminescent turning the Pacific waves a soft neon blue as they break on the beach. See our post about red tide in New York harbor around this time last year.
Red Tide – Bioluminescent San Diego, 2011
Thanks to Irwin Bryan for passing the story along.
Wow! that video is just amazing. I have never seen bioluminescence to that extent before. Seeing it for the first time, I was sitting on the bow of a sailing ship at night. It was the inspiration for my first book (Sea Dust).