{"id":1027220,"date":"2026-08-27T10:39:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T10:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1027220\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T10:39:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T10:39:15","slug":"florida-jumping-sticks-baffle-beachgoers-along-space-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1027220\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida &#8216;jumping sticks&#8217; baffle beachgoers along Space Coast"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Translucent \u201cjumping sticks\u201d washing up along\u00a0Florida\u2019s Space Coast have people asking one question: What are they?<\/p>\n<p>The unusual discovery of dozens of 1-inch moving creatures left one\u00a0beach-stroller near the Indialantic Boardwalk mesmerized, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox35orlando.com\/news\/mystery-space-coast-what-clear-jumping-sticks-beach\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">FOX 35 WOFL reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey were flopping around. They were very active, and that\u2019s what caught my eye,\u201d Diana Duby told WOFL.<\/p>\n<p>Duby initially thought the organisms could have been\u00a0baby eels, and she wasn\u2019t far off, according to Dr. Todd Osborne, a marine life expert at the University of Florida\u2019s Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience.<\/p>\n<p>They, in fact, fall under the same family of\u00a0leptocephalus, Dr. Osborne told WOFL.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat little clear thing \u2014 that could be an eel, a tarpon, several different tarpon, bonefish, ladyfish,\u201d Dr. Osborne said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey all fall under this class, the same order and they all have the same growth morphology as larvae, which is really cool.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.54861111;display:block\" decoding=\"async\"   data-modal-image=\"40533914\" width=\"324\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/mysterious-clear-jumping-sticks-spotted-138642906.jpg\" alt=\"A clear &quot;jumping stick&quot; worm-like organism on a gray sandy surface.\" class=\"wp-image-40533914\"\/>Mysterious \u201cjumping sticks\u201d are baffling beachgoers on Florida\u2019s Space Coast. Diana Duby\/FOX 35 WOFL<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.54444444;display:block\" decoding=\"async\"   data-modal-image=\"40533917\" width=\"321\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/mysterious-clear-jumping-sticks-spotted-138642907.jpg\" alt=\"Clear, worm-like marine creatures on a sandy beach.\" class=\"wp-image-40533917\"\/>Marine expert Dr. Todd Osborne says these 1-inch translucent critters are larval leptocephalus, like baby eels. Diana Duby\/FOX 35 WOFL<\/p>\n<p>The mysterious organisms are so young that identifying their exact species is nearly impossible without further investigation.<\/p>\n<p>One person\u2019s chance encounter with the drifting, translucent organisms highlights how much <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2023\/07\/05\/giant-rotten-egg-smelling-seaweed-blob-shrinks-off-florida-coast\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">remains unknown about Florida\u2019s coastal marine ecosystems<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve been cataloging things in the ocean for a couple hundred years, and we still have no idea about what is going on out there,\u201d Dr. Osborne told WOFL.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Translucent \u201cjumping sticks\u201d washing up along\u00a0Florida\u2019s Space Coast have people asking one question: What are they? The unusual&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1027221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[27],"tags":[3425,3808,14079,723,9457,159,67,132,68,1154,837],"class_list":["post-1027220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-animals","tag-atlantic-ocean","tag-beaches","tag-florida","tag-mystery","tag-science","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-us-news","tag-wildlife"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117167050230439035","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1027220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1027221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1027220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1027220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1027220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}