Beach blob mystery solved at last


19:00 23 June 04

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"An ocean without unnamed monsters," wrote John Steinbeck, "would be like sleep without dreams." But the dream that a new species of sea monster washed up in Chile in 2003 is over.

Marine biologists have definitively shown that the "Chilean Blob" and other similar mysteries are simply the remains of whales.

In July 2003, a 13-tonne blob of amorphous tissue rolled ashore in Los Muermos, Chile. Local marine biologists could find no bones in it, prompting speculation that it might be the body of a new species of giant octopus.

Even the discovery of the unique dermal glands of the sperm whale in the blob could not dampen this popular hope.

But Sidney Pierce of the University of Southern Florida in Tampa and his colleagues have put the blob through further tests. As they now report in /The Biological Bulletin/ (vol 206, p 125), electron microscopy has revealed a network of tough collagen fibres that are consistent with whale tissue. Also, although no cells remain in the blob, fragments of its DNA match that of a sperm whale.

By putting preserved samples through similar tests, the researchers have confirmed that the "giant octopus of St Augustine" from 1896, the 1960 Tasmanian west coast monster, two Bermuda blobs from the 1990s and the 1996 Nantucket blob are also just the washed-up remains of whales.

Jon Copley

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