The majestic, floating tubes that are egg masses of diamond-shaped squid

June 30, 2013 2:14 PM

"On June 20th I received an email: a huge pink blob has been found off the coast of Cuba, and no one can figure out what it is.... They combine my two great loves: random biology facts and digging through the internet. Roughly 247 aquarium forums, journal articles and poorly-translated Japanese websites later, I had my answer. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the biggest mass of teensy eggs that I have ever seen." See also: videos 1, 2, 3.

Those images and videos are egg masses from the diamond-shaped squid (Thysanoteuthis rhombus). If you'd like to know more about these egg masses, here's a PDF (Google cache HTML) of "Sighting of Thysanoteuthis rhombus egg mass in Indonesian waters and observations of embryonic development," a concise two-page paper, and there's also the original identification of the species in 1857.

posted by filthy light thief (4 comments total)

It's lucky a baleen whale didn't find it. It would have been gone in one gulp.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 2:54 PM on June 30, 2013

A baleen whale down on its luck, spending its time on squid roe …
posted by hattifattener at 2:58 PM on June 30, 2013 [38 favorites]

That was not as gross as "a huge pink blob" suggested.
posted by Jahaza at 3:20 PM on June 30, 2013 [5 favorites]

Is there a flag for puns that induce physical pain?
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 3:54 PM on June 30, 2013 [1 favorite]