Mystery solved!

Paddy likes watching crab fishing shows – the type where rugged fisher-folk battle monstrous seas at ghastly times of year for that last big catch.

Paddy’s Dad has Sky TV and in between the recordings of documentaries, motor-racing and engineering programmes sits a lot of crustacean catching – courtesy of sonny boy.

It’s become a bit of a running gag with us every time we go to visit.

“What are we watching? Not bloody crab fishing again!” (Most of the time we aren’t watching crab fishing – Paddy just likes to announce that we are to wind him up.)

It was bloody crab fishing we were watching at the weekend however when I picked up the first clue towards what our mystery critters might be.

Is it a shrimp? Is it a plane?
Is it a shrimp? Is it a plane?

This time the battle between man and crab was taking part in the North Sea and starred fisherfolk with accents so think they needed sub-titles despite speaking in English.

They weren’t having much luck and were pulling up all manner of things that weren’t actually crabs – including these odd-looking creatures they called “squat lobsters” which looked suspiciously like a larger version of our unidentified swarm.

I turned to Google where I discovered a blog on how to cook the things, but it wasn’t a New Zealand-based one so I still wasn’t 100% sure

Squat lobster
Squat Lobster courtesy of A Fish Blog.com

But Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand sealed the deal with this boggle-eyed chap

 Creative Commons -Courtesy of Niel Bruce and Alison MacDiarmid. 'Crabs, crayfish and other crustaceans - Lobsters, prawns and krill', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand)')
Look into my eyeeees… (Crabs, crayfish and other crustaceans – Lobsters, prawns and krill’, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand)

Accompanied by the following entry:

Swarms of these bug-eyed crustaceans often wash ashore in summer on southern beaches. They are the juveniles of the squat lobster (Munida gregaria), commonly known as whale krill or lobster krill, and they are an important food for seabirds and fish. Adult squat lobsters live on the sea floor and are not commonly seen.

So mystery solved – thanks guys!

Our squillions of swarming shrimp-things were in fact baby squat lobsters

Boil up
Boil up

Paddy’s response to all the excitement? “See? crab fishing is educational!”

Squillions of swarming shrimp-things

I will write a proper blog about our Tasman Bay trip soon, but there is a mystery to be solved first.

While we were anchored up in Queen Charlotte Sounds we found ourselves surrounded by thousands of critters that looked like this:

Is it a shrimp? Is it a plane?
Is it a shrimp? Is it a plane?

I was so fascinated I even made a short film: http://youtu.be/PE2xTdgX5SI

By day two there were so many of them they were actually making the water boil http://youtu.be/dc0xdXYO6W8

Boil up
Boil up

and were covering the bay like the red weed from War of the Worlds

The chances of anything coming from Mars...
The chances of anything coming from Mars…

They also rather bemused a couple of local geese who attempted fruitlessly to munch on them http://youtu.be/nyCV10YRCkw

What the???
What the???

So far the theories are shrimp, krill or lost baby lobsters, but we really have no idea. So if any of you can identify the mystery critters it would be much appreciated.

No prizes other than public acknowledgement that you know something I don’t!

(There’s a slightly closer view of them here too – apologies for quality of filming. The little buggers moved about so much it was hard to follow them without blurring the shot http://youtu.be/lvmTn6xmSUM)