Giant sea creature baffles Chilean scientists

Photographs showed a round leathery substance like a mammoth jelly fish, about as long as a school bus.

SANTIAGO, Chile (Reuters) -- Chilean scientists were baffled on Tuesday by a huge, gelatinous sea creature found washed up on the southern Pacific coast and were seeking international help identifying the mystery specimen.

The dead creature was mistaken for a beached whale when first reported about a week ago, but experts who went to see it said the 40-foot-long (12-meter) mass of decomposing lumpy grey flesh apparently was an invertebrate.

"We'd never before seen such a strange specimen, We don't know if it might be a giant squid that is missing some of its parts or maybe it's a new species," said Elsa Cabrera, a marine biologist and director of the Center for Cetacean Conservation in Santiago.

Photographs showed a round leathery substance like a mammoth jelly fish, about as long as a school bus.

Giant squid live at a depth of 9,500 feet (3,000 meters) and only rise to the surface when they die. Specimens have been known to be as long as 60 feet (18 meters).

There was speculation that the mass might be a whale skin, but Cabrera said it was too big and did not have the right texture or smell.

Cabrera said she was contacting Chilean and international organizations in the hope that they could help shed some light on the find.

The Chilean Navy first spotted the mystery specimen along with another large mass, but the other dead animal turned out to be a dead humpback whale.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/americas/07/...reut/index.html

A group of people are trying to find better pictures, will hopefully have news soon.

Yes, the CNN one wasn't very good. Still interesting though.

Probably some unknown species of a giant squid. Very interesting though.

According to O'Shea (who is behind the discovery of the Clossal Squid, see the Sea Monsters thread) says that, while he needs better pictures, it doesn't look like any part of any kind of squid to him.

Here is his exact response

QUOTE

Thanks Llywelyn; looks like no piece of giant squid or octopus to me; better shots needed.  Bizarre that they say it is invertebrate (and didn't look like, feel or smell like whale).

Looks like a huge jellyfish to me

It has the shape of a jellyfish, but the flesh doesnt seem right...

Jellyfish come in many colours and all shapes, so...

Looks like a jellyfish to me too, but I can't tell anything without better shots.

mhallex:

Ever seen a bluebottle or a portugese man of war?

Hmmm..... yeah, cant *quite* make it out from what I can see....

It looks like.... like.... nothing!

Thats right, wheres this mysterious photo you guys are alking about on CNN?!?!

All I see is text and the usual links to toher stories etc etc.

Oh, and a link to the chilean website thing (on which there isnt a photo either... not on the fron tpage anyway and I dotn read enough Chilean to bother navigating through the site.

Looks like rotted flesh to me. Nothing like any jellyfish or man o war I've ever seen.

I keep thinking about the bodies of whale sharks that they used to find on the coast of Ireland. By the time the bodies would reach there they were eviscerated and the fins and tails were removed. The bodies were always confused for sea serpents.

"chilean" == Spanish.

OK, well the point is that to me its incomprehensible garble

QUOTE (O'Shea)

That's decomposed whale skin and blubber for sure; going to be egg on a few peoples faces after this.  We've had globsters just like it here.   Sad, but probably the dead mate of the other humpback.

QUOTE (marleyfrost @ Jul 2 2003, 07:01 AM)

Looks like rotted flesh to me. Nothing like any jellyfish or man o war I've ever seen.

more than thirty students from schools in the municipality of Los Muermos were in attendance at Las Manchillas Beach to learn about the characteristics of the whales and the importance of conservation of the large diversity of cetacious species that they encounter in chilean waters.

Human translation. I did it meself!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3039102.stm



THAT doesnt look liek rotted flesh of a whale. And a whale was also sighted by this blob.

And a nice little news article that claims it is a giant squid.


Here, Squiddy Squiddy Squiddy.

Its a Whale

acow's pics look quite a bit like an octopus, though.

QUOTE (myopsida @ Jul 3, 2003)

Dead whales decompose very rapidly - the blubber is such an efficient insulator that the body heat is retained after the animal dies, enabling bacteria to decompose the insides rapidly. A sperm whale washed up on a beach will virtually dissappear in 10 days - including most of the bones. (Sperm whale bone is full of oil and apart from the jaw & atlas/axis vertebare articulations, very soft and almost spnge-like). The only part of the body that persists is the blubber, which forms a strange ragged white fibrous mass (often with little smell) variously identified as "mystery monster". Makes for better newspaper headlines than "big dead smelly whale on beach"

From the boards on TONMO.

i bet it felt all squishy and cool...i want some play-doh

didn't smell like whale either...



user posted smell

Wow... so they find this hunk of flesh next to a dead whale, and they immediately think it must a new species?

Scientists can lack common sense sometimes...

Dead whale nearby + leathery texture + same color as whale = whale skin.

Gnu's skill at thread necromancy is strong.

Fascinating how the thread has over 2000 views. I remember when that happened, too, though I can't point out the date.

ROTFL - actually i saw a gues viewing it, and i'd never seen it befreo, so i followed them in...

i hadnt noticed how old it was til i posted, but... 2000+ views... wow!!!


wonder why?!? doesnt seem like that interesting a thread?