What’s that red stuff in the water?

LYDIA GREEN (Manta Watch New Zealand)

If you were wondering what the large red ‘blooms’ were in the harbours along the western coast of Aotea or in the Hauraki Gulf while flying to or from the island in November it is a marine dinoflagellate called Noctiluca. These little guys are neither plants nor animals but function somewhere between the two! Noctiluca is pretty common in spring as we have heaps of sunshine, and different bodies of water mixing.

It was blooming throughout the Hauraki Gulf for well over a month and finally made it to Okupe at the end of November! Noctiluca is famous for its bioluminescence. It is also known as ‘sea sparkle’ because of the blue light from the bioluminescence visible at night

Dead or alive Noctiluca can cover massive expanses of ocean and hangs in the water column for ages. If you see any white stringy stuff out and about, that’s dead or dying noctiluca.

Despite the epic colour contrast, the presence of Noctulica usually means a lack of filter feeding for megafauna, such as manta rays and baleen whales. As you can imagine, this stuff wouldn’t taste so good.