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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Katharine Gammon in Santa Monica

Sex on the beach: a beloved California fish wriggles ashore to spawn

An image showing many silvery fish sprawled on the beach at night.
Grunion wait for the incoming tide to aid them in swimming back out to sea during a Grunion run on 1 June 2022. Photograph: Gabriella Angotti-Jones/The Guardian

On certain nights on a quiet California beach, thousands of small, silvery fish gather in the moonlight to perform a unique mating ritual.

Known as the “grunion run”, the spectacle is one of the lesser known natural wonders of the US west coast. Grunion are a rare fish species that come ashore to spawn, and during the months of April to August they cover beaches from Baja California to Santa Barbara like a glittering carpet, wriggling in the sand to lay and fertilize eggs just after the highest tide of a full or new moon.

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