Not everything that washes onto the shore is large or easy to spot. For example, the tiny jelly-like salps that have been washing ashore throughout much of April and May are easily missed by beachcombers. Believe it or not, salps belong to the same animal group as humans. When you look at tiny beach-washed salps you are viewing your very distant cousins. Salps belong to a group of marine chordates commonly known as tunicates.
Sea squirts are the best known tunicates.
Sea squirts, such as cunjevoi, are filter feeders that are usually found fixed to rocks on the shore or below the waves. Salps are minute tunicates that live as plankton. They drift about the sunlit, upper levels of the ocean where they feed on even smaller planktonic organisms. Occasionally masses of salps are washed into shallow coastal waters and many are stranded on our beaches. Their minute transparent bodies are no more than 5 millimetres long, almost too small to be seen.