The exotic –– and extremely weird –– new species being spotted off California as super El Niño looms

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As one of the strongest El Niños on record builds in the Pacific, California’s coastal waters are filling with unusual visitors including whale sharks, hammerheads and even venomous sea snakes.

A longfin bigeye fish was spotted in California last month for the first time, according to Reuters. An endangered olive ridley sea turtle laid eggs in two separate nests in Orange County, hundreds of miles outside the species’ usual range.

The nests, in Seal Beach and Huntington Beach, are the first documented olive ridley nests ever recorded on the West Coast, according to NOAA Fisheries.

Both nesting areas have been fenced off and marked with warning signs, while experts will continuously monitor the nests throughout the incubation period.

Jackie Aguilar and her family were walking along Crystal Cove State Beach on the night of Sept. 11 when she came across what appeared to be a yellow-bellied sea snake. Experts had warned that the potentially deadly predator could come ashore as waters warm.

The species hasn’t been seen in the region in nearly a decade. Certified marine naturalist Capt. Chad Steffen said it looked like a yellow-bellied sea snake, which carries enough venom to kill a human.

Whale watchers had a stunning encounter of their own when a pod of killer whales swam alongside their boat off Newport Beach on Sept. 29.

Passengers on a Newport Landing Whale Watching cruise counted 10 to 13 orcas. The animals normally live in waters off Mexico and Central America, and the unusually warm ocean appears to have drawn them north.

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“Killer whales can be identified from their dorsal fins and this exact pod of eastern tropical pacific killer whales has been to Newport several times before—in 2018, 2023, 2024, and 2026!” the company posted on social media, along with a video of the sighting.

Strong El Niño years have long brought subtropical species north, including hammerhead sharks during the powerful 2015-16 event, when several of the few earlier sea snake sightings in Southern California also occurred.