Every now and then, a bizarre “thing” from the deep depths will wash up somewhere and cause a stir on social media. There are also soмetiмes among scientists. The most recent example of this was a mysterious “red glo” that occurred above Washington state.
Ron Newerry, a local communications specialist, discovered the strange sea monster on a beach at Eey’s Landing. He emailed a photo of the critter to the Whidbey News-Times and wrote that he discovered it there around low tide that morning.
He said, “I didn’t know for sure it was an octopus.” “Seeing huge jellyfish wash up on the shore is very common. I didn’t want to touch it because I didn’t know what it was. It was also scary because it was dead.
The mysterious monster, in his estimation, was about 3.5 feet long. In order to help identify the animal, Newerry also posted pictures of the specimen to the Whidbey Camano Land Trust wiki site.
The misshaped body of the monster sparked numerous hypotheses. It resembled a 3,000-foot-deep sea creature known as an abyssal squid, according to an engineer from the Seattle Aquarium. Others speculated that it might be a big Pacific octopus, which is believed to be one of the largest octopus species in the world.
A University of Washington iology professor who received the images from The News-Times wasn’t sure either. She forwarded the information to a few further iologists, who then forwarded it to yet more specialists. Indeed, as a result of this, scientists from institutions including the Smithsonian Institution, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California joined the consortium.
The majority of people concurred that the species was a Haliphron atlanticus, also called the “seen-arched octopus.” Although they have also been discovered in the South Pacific close to New Zealand, the seen-armored octopus is typically found in the Atlantic Ocean. The discovery of a seen-armed octopus off the coast of Washington is extremely unlikely, so some people were surprised by it, but not everyone.
It’s not that unusual for Haliphron to be this far north, according to Elaina Jorgenson of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), who wrote in an email. “I’ve seen images of Haliphron from off the coast of British Columbia.” It’s possible that this animal entered Puget Sound during last week’s windstorm and drowned in our low salinity waters.
Another expert’s assessment of the creature’s normal range was slightly different. Dr. Michael Vecchione of the Smithsonian Institution stated in an email, “I was relieved that it was located in Puget Sound, which is rather far north for that occurrence. “But, ft distributions are not as common these days,”