When a mysterious 13-foot blob washed up on the shore of a beach in Acapulco, Mexico on Friday, officials and onlookers were quite shocked and had no idea what the peculiar piece of gray mass was.
The gray object was discovered by Acapulco's Civil Protection and Firefighters Department on Bonfire Beach. Some people guessed that it might be a giant squid, or perhaps an unidentifiable "terrifying sea monster."
What they do know is that the creature must have died shortly before people on the beach discovered it, as reported by Mexican news site 24 Horas. It was possibly well on its way to decay.
Sabas de la Rosa Camacho, the department's coordinator, said the department received the notification about the strange blob in the afternoon of March 9. He said strong currents related to bad weather had probably brought the piece to the shore.
Still, while the gray mass was assumed to be the decomposing remains of an animal, de la Rosa Camacho said it did not have any unpleasant smell or fetid aroma. Investigation into the animal revealed bones under the heap, but officials could not identify what kind of animal it was.
Not A Sea Monster
Marine mammal experts, however, said the untidy and jumbled piece of gray flesh was not a sea monster, but was likely part of a sperm whale's head.
James Mead of the National Museum of National History said the object may have been the top half of the head mass of a sperm whale.
Mead told Live Science that in sperm whales, the head's roomy part is separated into two main regions.
First, the top area contains the spermaceti organ, which is a holding container for a waxy liquid that helps whales with echolocation. Echolocation is the use of sound waves to determine where objects are in space.
Second, the bottom area is known as "the junk." It is mostly made of connective tissue.
Mead, who is a curator emeritus of marine mammals on the museum, said the pile of gray flesh on the beach is most likely the sperm whale's junk plus the top head but without the spermaceti organ.
"The junk has separated from the skull," said Mead. "You can see about midway through the video the nasal plugs, which form the valve that closes the bony narial tube."
The 13-foot length represented the junk as it is stretched out. He said the junk's relaxed length would only be 10 feet. This meant that the piece came from a sperm whale on the order of about 30 to 40 feet long.
Watch the video below.
