Whilst strolling on the beach in my Sunday best I espied a veritable flotilla of fibrous balls washed up at the high tide mark.
The largest one in the picture above is the size of an orange, or perhaps a smallish grapefruit or a very large apple or even a whole punnet of strawberries. It was firm to the touch, light and dry. It was formed from what resembled horse-hair, and embedded in the surface was some kind of dried vegetable matter akin to the flower of Geraldton Wax but brown and flaky.
Most of them were perfectly round, but some of the smaller ones were eccentric or ovate. There was a stretch of about 100 metres of beach about a metre wide with these things scattered across it, roughly 10 per square metre.
From their appearance they resembled gigantic fur-balls with perfect symmetry. I have no idea what they are. Perhaps a cargo ship carrying horses sunk and the horses were eaten by giant squid which regurgitated the indigestible components in spherical form.
Any better ideas?
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3 comments:
It sounds to me like you've been hanging round a certain anatomical pathologist, you seem to be very good at using your describing words.
So long as you didn't touch any of them you should be fine, they are extremely poisonous and cause explosive diarrhoea approximately three-four days after contact.
They're actually formed from the little bits of sea weed/stick thingies. As the waves roll in and out, the sticks tend to ball together as they get churned back and forth in the sand ditches. Alternatively it was a giant sea-cat up chucking.
Heh, my word verification is croch. I giggled.
Really? Wow! It's amazing how perfectly round they are. Like pearls but brown and made of sticks.
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