4 Freaky Creature Facts from Oregon Coast: Sand Dollars to Almost Paranormal Blobs

Published 7/24/24 at 5:35 p.m.
By Andre' GW Hagestedt, Oregon Coast Beach Connection

(Oregon Coast) – This area is one of the more dynamic shorelines on the planet. Stuff is always changing or washing up; beaches and sand are shifting, and the wonders never cease. The area is known for the odd axiom: don't be surprised to be surprised. (What mystery creature is this? Photo by Rachel Sip - see below)

Some of the Oregon coast's freakiest moments come from the creatures themselves: the denizens of the deep who end up here and, well, make a splash.

Here are four wowing creature facts from this coastline.

Sand Dollars: Living vs. Dead. More than 90 percent of the time, any sand dollar you find here is going to be dead. In fact, it's rare to find whole ones. Even rarer: a live one.

Tiffany Boothe of Seaside Aquarium said you normally see them all whitish or light gray, but they are a deeper gray to lavender when still alive.

Seaside Aquarium

If you find one that's not that sort of bleached-out look, and it's still fuzzy and a bit colorful, you should definitely leave it alone. That's still alive. You can try throwing it back, but that won't work 99 percent of the time. They can't swim back to the sandy beds they've grown from, and the waves just wash them right in.

The big problem with a live one: it's gonna stink real quick. Nothing quite like dead and rotting seafood in your car, right? Curious Bits About Sand Dollars on Oregon Coast / Washington Coast You Didn't Know

Photo Merica Lynn

Deeply Disgusting Globster. This is where science almost enters the paranormal.

Until about the middle of the last century, people would occasionally find bizarre, dead cryptids on the beach: masses of surreal deceased sea monsters they couldn't identify. In fact, they seemed – and still appear – to be kind of hairy. From ancient times onwards, they were thought to be otherworldly in some way.

They've been termed “globsters,” and what they are is quite simple. A whale corpse decays out there in the Deep Blue and then it starts to break apart. Sometimes, those chunks wash up and they're puzzling in shape. They're also so decayed the flesh looks like hair. It's not: it's just plain ol' disgusting.

Globster in Rockaway Beach / Rachel Sip

Globsters still wash up here on occasion, and it's no happy job to rid of them – like Seaside Aquarium has to when they come ashore in areas like Long Beach, Washington, Seaside, Cannon Beach, Manzanita or Rockaway Beach. Anything south of that is other people's responsibility.

“The last thing you want is that decomposed thing to roll over on you or just touch you, when it’s being knocked around by the tide,” said the aquarium's Tiffany Boothe. Ewww, 'Globsters' of Oregon / Washington Coast and Their Paranormal Past

See the video of a graceful whale sighting at Port Orford. A momma gray whale and calf make a beautiful show.

The Wild, Weird Lancetfish

Seaside Aquarium photo

Another rarity to find on the shore is an odd, prehistoric looking fish called a Pacific Lancetfish. They are common in the waters of the Oregon coast, but it's rare to find one having washed up onshore.

They usually reside in deeper waters and much farther out to sea

The lancetfish can have skin that appears iridescent. It has dagger-like teeth along with striking blue eyes. Most people think they're looking at a barracuda, and they do resemble that with their enormous teeth. In fact, one that washed up on this shoreline in the 2010s years may have died because they are known to accidentally bite themselves in a feeding frenzy.

The lancetfish's large eyes enable them to see in deep water. These are scaleless fish with large teeth and sail-like dorsal fins. Boothe said they can be found worldwide and in almost all oceans, except for the polar oceans. They range in depths from 10 feet to over 3,000 feet. More: Spiky, Bitey-Looking Fish Washing Up on Oregon Coast Lately: Why, What They're Not

Dolphins and Porpoises – and Vice Versa

Seaside Aquarium photo: harbor porpoise

One thing that often happens around here is that people get dolphins and harbor porpoises mixed up. To mess things up even further, the Dall's porpoise off the Oregon coast looks similar to a killer whale.

So what's the difference? Essentially a dolphin has a more triangular dorsal fin and a more beaked snout, while harbor porpoises tend to be stubby and they don't really have a beak. However, a Dall's porpoise can have a streamlined look to its snout, which definitely looks different than, say, a white-sided dolphin around here. Yet it can be confused with a killer whale due to its coloration, or witha dolphin because the mouth area is different.

Seaside Aquarium: striped dolphin

Harbor porpoises are extremely common in these waters, and their populations outnumber actual dolphins by about ten to one here.

A few kinds of dolphins run around Oregon waters, but they rarely wash up onshore even after they've died. The three most common types are striped dolphins, white-sided dolphins and long-beaked common dolphins. Out of those, the striped dolphin has stranded ashore the most in the last 20 years, as documented by Seaside Aquarium.

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