Identify this weird beach blob, please.

Factual Questions
1

I should’ve taken a photo, but I did not.

We were in Tsawwassen (south of Vancouver) at low tide, wandering the beaches. We came across a few blobby weird things. After many requests of my companion to “touch it!!”, he did. Seemed safe enough so I touched it, too.

As far as I can tell they were as follows:

  • a pale, transparent orange colour
  • spherical, but not stiff enough to maintain a solid sphere shape
  • squishy, like Jell-O
  • between three and five inches in diameter
  • completey homogenous with no noticeable pores, internal structures or markings

We speculated that they might be some kind of colony organisms, or some kind of weird jellyfish, or some kind of eggs or mounds of eggs.

Googling “orange gelatinous beach blobs” didn’t help much.

2

Upon reviewing this post, my companion says, “I didn’t think it was homogenous; I thought it had a pore-y pattern on the outside even if it felt solid.”

3

Most likely an alien life form. Or a jellyfish of some type. Out of the water the tenatacles may shrivel up and tuck in. Was it alive?

4

I don’t think so. If it was, it didn’t respond when poked. But since it was pretty featureless, it’s hard to say how it would’ve responded. It was also on the sand and not in the water with no notable way of getting itself to the water.

I didn’t really think it was an animal, but maybe a piece of an animal. Or many tiny animals.

5

I’m going to guess it’s an egg case from a giant snail. That’s what this was, and it had a pattern on it that looked a lot like the ones you find on nerf footballs. The OP’s sounds more like this one than the one I found.

6

At least you didn’t find a left foot, still clad in a waterlogged running shoe.

7

Well based on all the information you’ve provided, I’ll stick with alien life form or jelly fish. Maybe locals will recognize it as something else. Maybe you could draw a picture. The hand drawn pictures of UFOs are always remarkably accurate. Or see if might bethis.

8

Ha HA! Maybe it WAS a left foot at some point in its history!

And, I mis-read the title as “Identify this weird bleach blob, please” and my response was going to be Heidi Montag. :smiley:

9

This is the first thing I thought of, but presumably you’d be familiar with seaweed.

10

Occam’s jellyfish.

11

Sounds like Sea Pork. Aplidium stellatum, a type of tunicate.

Take a look here for one example: Lucky Dog News - home to The Island Eye News and Island Connection - Lucky Dog News

12

:smiley:

13

I don’t think it’s any of the things listed so far. The case that elfkin477 posted was sort of right on for colour, but these things were definitely very round. Thanks to Cat Whisperer for making me think of Heidi Montag, because they looked exactly like orange breast implants abandoned all over the beach.

14

Despite the distinct possibility of alien invaders, I think you got yerself a jelly.

Not all jellyfish have long, flowing tentacles, and it’s possible to swim among and handle many species.

Not sure right now what species you have, but do some searching on Pacific jellies and see if you don’t spot an orange one or two!

15

Whale spooge?

16

Was is actually as jiggly as jello, or was it firmer, sort of like a ruber ball?

You can also try asking the guy that runs this blog:

http://cephalopodcast.com/

17

Thanks for the morning laugh. :slight_smile:

18

I have seen the gel from disposable diapers washed up on shore that looked a lot like your description. Could it be that?

19

The word is homogeneous, not homogenous.

20

I would say it was actually as jiggly as Jell-O. It held together pretty well, but not as well as a solid ball would. If I tried, I could rip it apart pretty easily. Thanks for your suggestion about the blog, though. I will try that.

I didn’t know what that looked like, so I Googled it. That seems too crystallized, whereas this was actually a jelly-like thing. I’m not sure if it is/was alive or part of a living thing or just a weird piece of sea garbage.