The bizarre “sea blobs” that have been bobbing about in the waters off of Norway have finally been explained, and what they actually are is far more gross than it is “mysterious.”

It seemed like something from your favorite “in search of…” cryptid creatures TV show. A few years ago, divers exploring the western coast of Norway encountered an object they could not explain – an enormous, jelly-like orb, more than 3 feet wide, hovering in place partway between the seafloor and the surface. Since then, many more of the eerie blobs have been spotted.

There have been more than 100 similar blob sightings reported around Norway and the Mediterranean Sea since that first strange encounter, but the mysterious gelatinous masses have always evaded classification.

That is until now. Thanks to a year-long citizen science campaign and a new DNA analysis, researchers have finally identified the blobs as the rarely-seen egg sacs of a common squid called Illex coindetii.

According to a new study published in the journal Scientific Reports, each blob may contain hundreds of thousands of teensy squid eggs encased in a bubble of slowly disintegrating “squid mucus.” Remarkably, while scientists have known about I. coindetii for more than 180 years and have observed the species widely around the Mediterranean and both sides of the Atlantic, this is the first time they have identified the squid’s egg sacs in the wild.

“We also got to see what’s inside the actual sphere, showing squid embryos at four different stages,” lead study author Halldis Ringvold, manager of the marine zoology organization Sea Snack Norway, told the press. “In addition, we could follow how the sphere actually changes consistency — from firm and transparent to rupturing and opaque — as the embryos develop.”

I. coindetii belongs to a common group of squids called Ommastrephidae. During reproduction, females in this group produce large egg spheres — or egg masses — made of their own mucus to keep their embryos buoyant and safe from predators, Ringvold said. However, sightings of these masses are rare, and some species’ masses have never been seen, late alone captured for study and analysis.

Close Encounters of the Blobby Kind

When the Norwegian blob sightings became international news several years ago,  researchers suspected that the spheres were indeed squid egg masses. But without a DNA analysis of the blob’s tissue, there was no way to show what squid species, if any, had created the gelatinous orbs.

So, Ringvold and his colleagues launched a citizen science campaign that asked divers not to “Beware of the Blob” but instead encouraged any divers that encountered them to collect small tissue samples. In 2019 a group of divers off the coast of Norway came through with tissue samples from four separate blobs. The research paper said that collecting the samples did not seem to harm the blobs in any way.

The samples included both the gooey body of the blobs plus embryos at different stages of development. A DNA analysis of the tissues confirmed that all four blobs contained I. coindetii squids, the researchers wrote.

An aquatic mystery solved! Now, what about those mermaid sightings?