Gelatinous Sea Creatures Storm San Francisco

Attention, San Francisco parents who want to gratify their child with a cheap pet: Grab a bucket and head on down to Ocean Beach, where the sands were recently bathed with thousands of squishy, purple-blue jelly creatures that are cute as a button—and almost certainly not-toxic to humans, to boot!

Well, some of them probably remain fun to poke and joggle, but as they've been washing up all week no doubt many are dead and smelling like fish intestines. The mass arrival of the sea dweller Velella velella, also known as the "By-the-Wind Sailor," began on the West Coast earlier this month and has been sporadically sliming beaches from Northern California all up the Oregon coast. The ones pictured above during a different velella fest in 2004 are sandy and hard to see. Here's what a fresh one looks like up close: