What the heck is this thing?

[Video Link]

Marine biologists think they can identify this strange, blobby creature that floated up out of the ocean depths and was captured on an oil drill video. That, alone, is not terribly surprising. Marine biologists know a lot of weird ocean creatures.

But would you believe they identified it by its gonads?

Read the rest of the story at Robert Krulwich's NPR blog.

Mark blogged about this critter previously, here on Boing Boing.

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

Maggie goes places and talks to people. Find out where she'll be speaking next.

MORE: animals • mysteries • oceans • Science • Weird

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Paul Renault

It’s the Yip-yip Martians from Sesame Street.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fQaj31Wtko
beemoh

“But would you believe they identified it by its gonads?”

It was subsquently identified as the biologist’s friend Dave. The biologist said he’d be missed.
snagglepuss

It’s a couple of gallons of refrigerated Hershey’s syrup. Just ask Bart Sloane. He’s a clever man.
TurquoiseDays

Note the hex grid all over it from about 2.00. It’s clearly some kind of game board, perhaps lost from the giant squid civilisation…
Dub Google

I half expected it to form the shape of a human face… a la The Abyss
Beanolini

would you believe they identified it by its gonads

Well, yes. Examination of the sex organs is the easiest way of identifying vast numbers of organisms.
- http://twitter.com/cjporkchop cjporkchop
  
  If only it were easy when wedding guests take pics of their junk with the disposable cameras left on tables.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    Surely you e-mailed all the guests with the image to see who accidentally left it behind?
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1000495086 Jose Merced

Shoggoth found. Run.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Trent-Baker/100000123865597 Trent Baker
  
  Its just a baby, kinda cute really.
Bindlestick

By their fruits ye shall know them.
stovedoor

Why yes, this might possibly ring a bell for me: http://boingboing.net/2012/05/09/weird-sea-creature-on-video.html
- Anon_Mahna
  
  oh good, I thought i was having dejavue
http://twitter.com/blindeschildpad Blinde Schildpad

How great would it be the have “identified by his gonads” appear in your obituary‽

Project!
- voiceinthedistance
  
  Get a distinctive tattoo there. It’s a good start, at least.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=561030396 Sean Hawley

The lake sludge from Creepshow 2. Stuff of nightmares.
http://www.moviefancentral.com/images/pictures/review57954/creepshow2-1987-sludge.jpg?1322840470
Ipo

”identified by his gonads”
Well, how else would you identify a giant scrotum?
- BombBlastLightingWaltz
  
  I for one welcome our flowing vulva over-lordress’s.
zotlerg

It’s a “Deepstaria Enigmatica” – Google it.
They found out a couple of weeks ago.
Job done - NEXT! : )
neurolux

Shame there’s no audio. I wanted to hear some good “omg wtf ?!?!?”.
jeligula

When boat fishing in the Puget Sound in 1984, I hooked this… thing. It had a single-bone mantle that resembled nothing more than a very large fishhook made of bone. It was surrounded by gelatinous material that was an obvious body of sorts. To this day, I still don’t know what it was, but it was a living organism. Still stranger than anything Hollywood has envisioned.
- Snig
  
  That was me. The wound from your fishhook still aches when it’s cold.
http://www.facebook.com/ParkerDouglasMusician Parker Douglas

I find this hard to masterbate to.
fergus1948

I’m pretty sure that’s the plastic bag from ‘American Beauty.’
fergus1948

(And it looks to be badly in need of a haemorrhoidectomy.)
Hannes Fertala

The yrr!
aynrandspenismighty

How long has it been since this thing worked on Thundarr?
Palomino

The hexagonal pattern gives it away. It’s some kind of fabric, what it’s made of I don’t know, but it’s wrapped (entangled) around a fish.
Palomino

It should be edited down to a few seconds, blurry, with someone screaming “Did you get it? Did you see it!” with a violent camera shake added. Then this would go viral and then investigated by Monster Hunters. Sometimes Knowing takes the thrill out of it.