Sticky eggs

Every spring I hope to see the herring spawn. So far, every year I've missed it. But I got down to the shore a few days later, and found a coating of roe everywhere.

A handful collected off the sand.

Herring roe on washed-up eelgrass.

The herring come in huge, dense schools—sometimes several kilometers long. Once they reach the spawning grounds, each female releases up to 40,000 clear, sticky eggs. The eggs stick to everything; they stick to the eel grass…they stick to the sea lettuce…they stick to the kelp…they stick to the rocks…they stick to the shells…they stick to the barnacles. In fact, there’s so many eggs that they don’t all get a chance to stick before the waves and the tide wash them up on the beaches—sometimes forming masses of eggs a foot or more deep. (Return of the Brants)

The eggs weren't a foot deep on the shore of Oyster Bay, just several inches deep all along the outer shore, and on everything tossed up by the tide.

MIllions and billions of eggs.

I was looking for kelp, to maybe cheer up my plumose anemone, but along the whole length of the Oyster Bay shore, inner and outer, I didn't find even one piece. Next time.

Pacific herring eggs are negatively buoyant. By depositing many layers of eggs on fronds of kelp, the spawn of herring has been known to sink entire kelp forests. Upon hatching and the release of tiny, swimming herring larvae, the forests rise again. (Raincoast.org)

I brought home a few handfuls of egg-laden eelgrass for my hermits and crabs. They usually like anything that grows on eelgrass. But not this time; a few of the crabs nibbled on eggs, but the hermits left them strictly alone.

It makes sense; the hermit crabs are scavengers; they don't take live food. The minute it dies, it's fair game.

I looked at the eelgrass under the microscope.

A blade of eelgrass with herring eggs.

More eggs. They are white, without a purple or green eelgrass backing.

A few days later. Each egg has a white blob inside. I don't see any movement there, but around the edges teeny copepods swim happily.

After a day in the tank, the eggs started to fall off the eelgrass, and coat the sand at the bottom, just as they did on the shore.

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Año tras año, en la primavera, los arenques llegan a nuestras playas para depositar su hueva. Y año tras año, yo llego tarde para verlos. Ni modo: por lo menos esta primavera, llegué a tiempo para ver los huevos que habían depositado.

Cada arenque desova hasta 40.000 huevos. La mayor parte no llegan a nacer; se los comen los pájaros, las focas, mamíferos como por ejemplo los mapaches, y hasta los osos. 

Los huevos son pegajosos, y se adhieren a todo lo que tocan; algas marinas, piedras, los percebes y caracoles, hierba Zostera, kelp, y hasta la arena de la playa, donde forman una capa que puede llegar a 30 cm. de hondo.

Recogí una bolsita llena de hierba con hueva para los cangrejos y ermitaños en mi acuario; siempre les gusta una poca de variedad en su dieta. Pero los ermitaños no la comieron; son carroñeros y no comen comida viva.

Después de unos dias, los huevos se depegaron y cubrieron el suelo de mi acuario, tal como lo habían hecho en la playa. Pero no tan hondo, claro.

No sé si alguno de los pecesitos vayan a nacer en mi tanque. Ya veremos.