Squid Eggs

Squid Eggs

These strange gelatinous tubes are squid egg capsules. They can be found on the beach as a single capsule or glued together in a large clump.

Squid form large schools, laying their eggs together on the bottom of the seafloor. Each female may lay up to 12 egg capsules.

Each egg capsule contains 180 to 300 eggs inside. As the eggs develop, you can see the baby squid moving and flashing their chromatophores (color changing cells) while still in the egg. Depending on water temperature, it will take about 6 weeks for the squid eggs to hatch. The newly hatched squid are roughly the size of a grain of rice.

During the spring and fall, when the influx of cold, nutrient rich water creates upwellings, animals, eggs, and other debris that has settled on the seafloor are disturbed and pushed into the water column where they eventually wash ashore. Once on shore, the eggs quickly dry up, and as they have no taste or odor, birds do not detect them as food.