A bumper year for Sargasso seaweed washing up on Bermuda’s shores has brought a bonanza of discoveries for marine life scientists collecting samples of the remarkable seaweed that floats on the surface of the sea and is home to a “city” of tiny sea creatures.

Everything from miniature flying fish to shrimp, crabs and even little turtles can be found clinging to the thick seaweed that floats along in large clumps and can form acres and acres of seaweed as far as the eye can see and thick enough to bring small sailing vessels attempting to traverse such areas to a halt.

Chris Flook, collector of species at the Aquarium, has been making the most of the bounty of marine life that has washed up in recent weeks. And one of the exciting discoveries was a Sargasso seaweed that at first appeared to be a totally new type but is now thought to be in a previously undocumented “flowering” phase.

After a number of years with relatively little Sargasso seaweed reaching the Island this year has seen an impressive amount of the seaweed. “There is a lot of it out there but the last couple of years we did not have that much. It all depends on the Gulf Stream and the eddies that break off from it,” said Mr. Flook.

The seaweed often becomes snarled up with floating rubbish and debris in the ocean, but the seaweed that has reached Bermuda this year is remarkably clean.

Some species of Sargasso seaweed starts life on the seabed and detaches itself to live on or just below the surface. Small “gas pods” are regulated by the living seaweed to alter the depth at which it sits in relation to the surface of the sea.

Mr Flook said: “It is like a floating reef. There are some creatures that live in it, mostly juvenile fish. It is important stuff, without this seaweed we would not see half the life that we do in the sea around us.”

The seaweed also serves another important purpose when it washes ashore. As it sinks into the sand on beaches it first provides rich pickings for birds who find the little sea creatures that are tangled up in the seaweed having failed to bail out before reaching the shore.

If left alone on the beach the seaweed gradually sinks into the sand and provides nutrients for beach creatures and then helps bond the beach together as it sinks further down.

And it also makes a great fertiliser.

“We have heard stories of mats of the seaweed floating for as far as the eye can see and so thick that they can pack up and stop yachts. It can get quite deep, a matter of a few feet. There is a spot north of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean where the extend of the seaweed is so vast it can be seen from space,” said Mr. Flook.

The species he has managed to collect from the seaweed include small flying fish, crabs and shrimps, juvenile trigger fish, slugs, and inch-and-a-half long “dolphin fish”, which are now on display at the Aquarium at Flatts.

Examples of the unusual seaweed that has been gathered has been forwarded to seaweed expert Dr. Martin Thomas for further examination.