FORT MYERS BEACH, Fla. — A giant blob of sea life washed up on Fort Myers Beach this past weekend, leaving people that walked by wondering what it was.
The colorful mass was about the size of a volleyball, if not a tad bigger, according to one woman who snapped a picture of it near Bowditch Point Park.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Brian Beyer.
Among the seashells scattered across the sand, the irregularly shaped species caught the attention of dozens online.
“It looks like it would be squishy,” said Maggie Felt when looking at the picture.
“It looks like a tongue. Oh my gosh! Is it a tongue,” added Carly Blenkush.
Not quite. While it is a creature of the sea, it’s not one that you’ll see often. Actually, it’s quite uncommon for them to even wash up.
“That’s got to be the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen,” Beyer said.
It gets weirder. The name of the blob is “Sea Pork.”
“Sea Pork is what scientists call a colonial tunicate,” said James Douglass, Associate Professor at Florida Gulf Coast University’s The Water School. “It’s a rubbery, invertebrate animal that lives in the ocean.”
Before we get too far, where does the name “sea pork” come from?
“I think it’s because of the rubbery, meaty texture,” Douglass said.
However, the piece found on Sunday isn’t just your average piece of sea pork. The person who spotted it said it was bigger than a volleyball. Douglass said that’s an incredibly large piece.
“That’s the biggest one I’ve ever heard of,” Douglass said. “So this person should be pretty fond of their find.”
He would know. Douglass and his students study sea pork. There’s also a good reason why you and I should care about the organism as well.
“This sea pork is actually helping improve the water quality because it feeds on particles of the water and filters them out of the water, making the water more clear,” he said.
The one that washed up likely did a lot of good. So, what happened to it?
In the picture, you can see something that looks like a claw. It’s actually a shell. According to Douglass, that shell was anchored into the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. When the sea pork came floating by, it attached itself and grew around it.
As Hurricane Ian came through, the storm’s strength likely knocked the sea pork free.
“The seabed was really rumbled and jumbled after the hurricane,” he said.
Now that we know what it is, there’s still one question that remains.
“Can you eat it? I want to know. I need to know,” said Blenkush.
While there are some edible forms of sea pork in East Asia, this isn’t that type.
“You wouldn’t want to eat it. It doesn’t taste like pork,” said Douglass. “I would strongly caution against eating anything you find on the beach here.”
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