18

We found a bunch of these balls across "Rio del Plata" in Montevideo or in the coast of Uruguay (Punta del Este).

There is a liquid in the ball. Also, it has a soft skin.

enter image description here

Improve this question
6
  • 14
    Ship load of breast implants? :X
    – 8192K
    Commented Mar 24, 2017 at 18:46
  • 1
    I do not think so. It is smaller than Breast implants. The size is a little bit more than a chicken egg. However, you describe very well, it looks like a Breast implant.
    – Marcel P.
    Commented Mar 24, 2017 at 18:48
  • 2
    Could they be from kelp? Typically I would expect kelp balls to look a more like this but these might be some variety I'm not aware of.
    – Erik
    Commented Mar 24, 2017 at 18:53
  • 3
    Eggs of some marine creature?
    – RedGrittyBrick
    Commented Mar 25, 2017 at 10:48
  • 1
    What's the paracord bracelet? It's more interesting. ping @Willeke also.
    – Gayot Fow
    Commented Mar 25, 2017 at 14:37

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
12

It might be a large specimen of Valonia ventricosa, also called "bubble algae" or "sailor's eyeball".

Improve this answer
2
  • I have searched by Valonia ventricosa and it looks like green. Is it right?
    – Marcel P.
    Commented Mar 29, 2017 at 12:33
  • 1
    V. ventricosa is photosynthetic (makes its own food from sunlight) and so is typically green when healthy, but can be a golden or brownish color when out of the sun for a few days.
    – Michael Lorton
    Commented Mar 29, 2017 at 14:15
5

If they haven't exploded yet, in addition to liquid, you will find some embryos inside.

They are very popular among Uruguayan coasts, that lead to wrongly associating them with shark eggs or turtle eggs.

Commonly, they are known as huevos de caracol negro (EN: black sea snail), voluta negra (because of its family: Volutidae) or ovicápsulas con embriones de caracoles (ovicápsula: from Latin: ovum: egg and capsŭla.

Technically speaking: Adelomelon brasiliana.

sea snail

This yellowish capsule, it's filled with food supplements for the embryos, it is located on the seabed and has an oval form, being this a unique feature between sea snails worldwide. After strong winds, many of them remain on the coast, with very low chance of surviving because of the depth where this specie raises. After approximately 2 months, eggs hatch in between 10 and 30 embryos.

Picture from http://www.mgap.gub.uy/sites/default/files/multimedia/1907_caracol_negro_vf_0.pdf

Improve this answer
3

I'm from Uruguay, and we typically call these "turtle eggs" although I'm not sure if the term is accurate.

Improve this answer
1
  • 2
    Frankly, I doubt those are turtle eggs. There's no reason for eggs to have transparent skin.
    – Dmitry Grigoryev
    Commented Aug 4, 2017 at 8:54
0

We call them here Agua Viva (Live or living water), AFAIK its irritant, so be careful, I wouldn't touch it.

What I found is that is some kind of relative of jellyfish, look for Medusozoa.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .