Human-Size Blob Drifts by Divers. And It's Packed with Hundreds of Thousands of Baby Squid.

[Judi Lynn]

By Mindy Weisberger - Senior Writer 19 hours ago

A trio of divers off the western coast of Norway had a close encounter with a drifting gelatinous blob — a squid's egg sac as big as an adult human.

A video captured and shared on YouTube on Oct. 6 by Ronald Raasch, a diver with the Norwegian research vessel REV Ocean, shows a diver slowly circling a spherical blob surrounded by a transparent membrane, with a dark mass suspended inside.

As the diver swam around the blob, his flashlight lit up its interior. Inside were numerous tiny spheres — eggs holding baby squid, estimated to number in the hundreds of thousands, according to the video description.

The REV Ocean divers spotted the egg mass during a visit to a submerged World War II shipwreck in Ørstafjorden, Norway, located about 650 feet (200 meters) from the coast. They were swimming back to shore at a depth of 55 feet (17 m) when they saw the blob drifting by, according to the YouTube description.

Raasch described the blob as a "blekksprutgeleball" — "squid gel ball" in Norwegian — when he posted the video. And this was far from the first account of such an unusual object. Dozens of similar blobs have been sighted in waters near Norway, Spain, France and Italy, with reports dating back 30 years, said Halldis Ringvold, a researcher with Sea Snack Norway and the project leader for "Huge Spheres," an investigation of the spherical sacs.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/giant-squid-egg-sac.html

[calimary]

1. Whoa!!!

[luvallpeeps]

2. That is so cool. n/t

[Karadeniz]

3. I'd have a heart attack! I don't like anything in my water except big waves!

[eppur_se_muova]

4. It would take a pretty big squid to produce that blob -- could it be Architeuthis ?

I hope they took an egg or hatchling or two for DNA testing.

[Igel]

5. Yes. It could be.

Beware Grisamentum, and look out for Goss and Subby.