May 19 (UPI) — National parks officials in North Carolina snapped a photo of an unidentified blob that washed up on a beach, and experts said the “mysterious mass” might be egg sacs from a squid.
The Cape Lookout National Seashore posted a photo to Facebook asking the public to help identify the gelatinous blob.
The post said the object had washed up months earlier, but National Park Service experts remained unable to identify it.
“So far, it has escaped being identified — although it might be something like the egg sacks of a squid (but we aren’t sure),” the post stated.
Commenters on the post pointed out the mass is similar to objects that have been spotted on West Coast beaches. A squid expert, Louis Zeidberg, identified the objects in those cases were found to be a species of Pacific Ocean squid known as the California market squid.
“There’s also an Atlantic species, which is slightly bigger,” Zeidberg told the Oregon Coast Aquarium.