Giant Jelly Ball Encountered Underwater In Norway Comes With A Surprise

Cynthia McKanzie – MessageToEagle.com – If you are a diver, you can expect to encounter the unexpected underwater. Many underwater mysteries remain unsolved and there is much to investigate beneath the waters.

While diving close to the Norwegian coast a group of divers suddenly came across a giant clump of jelly.

The mysterious jelly ball was the size of a human and there was a surprise inside. When the divers pointed their flashlights to take a closer look at the clump, they saw hundreds of thousands of small balls inside it.  In each ball was a small ‘baby’.

The Norwegian jelly ball was almost larger than the diver who examined it. Inside it are thousands of small balls that are eggs. Credit: © Ronald Rasch / Youtube

According to Rune Kristiansen, a biologist at the Kattegat Center, similar jelly balls have been discovered underwater before, but their origin has been a puzzle.

See also:

Marine Creatures You’d Better Stay Away From

Never-Before-Seen Creature Discovered Below The Surface Of Antarctica

Secrets Behind The Cuttlefish’s 3D ‘Invisibility Cloak’

“We have come across these floating jelly chunks occasionally for the last 20-30 years. But we didn’t quite know where they came from. Initially, the theory was that they could come from a fish, but in 2015 they made an extra effort and got them DNA tested, Kristiansen said.

DNA tests from the jelly balls found in 2015 revealed they come from an octopus species called red octopus. The red octopus lives in the Mediterranean and Atlantic. It’s a rare species. It has its home deep underwater and emerges to lower levels of water at night to eat.

The size of the jelly ball gives the impression the red octopus must be a very large animal, but this not the case. A red octopus is not more than 30 centimeters long but it’s perfectly capable of producing a human-sized jelly ball.

A red octopus found near Los Osos, California. Credit: Jerry Kirkhart – CC BY 2.0

Kristiansen said it’s possible the creature had help from others of its kind but most likely the jelly clump was produced by a single red octopus.

These animals are not particularly social and they mostly live alone.

Kristiansen thinks a substance inside the eggs reacted with the seawater, and thus formed the gel. So the lump that came out of the octopus was quite small, and later it grew in the water.

“We know that some fish and octopus eggs change when they are hydrated (ie exposed to water, ed.). Then they stick together in a protective jelly cocoon,” Kristiansen said.

Written by Cynthia McKanzie – MessageToEagle.com Staff Writer