A globster or blob is an unidentified organic mass that washes up on the

shoreline A coast (coastline, shoreline, seashore) is the land next to the sea or the line that forms the boundary between the land and the ocean or a lake. Coasts are influenced by the topography of the surrounding landscape and by aquatic erosion, su ...

of an ocean or other body of water. A globster is distinguished from a normal beached carcass by being hard to identify, at least by initial untrained observers, and by creating controversy as to its identity.

History

The term "globster" was coined by Ivan T. Sanderson in 1962 to describe the Tasmanian carcass of 1960, which was said to have "no visible eyes, no defined head, and no apparent bone structure." Other sources simply use the term "blob". Many globsters have initially been described as resembling gigantic octopuses, though they later turned out to be decayed carcasses of

whale Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully Aquatic animal, aquatic placental mammal, placental marine mammals. As an informal and Colloquialism, colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea ...

s or large

shark Sharks are a group of elasmobranch cartilaginous fish characterized by a ribless endoskeleton, dermal denticles, five to seven gill slits on each side, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head. Modern sharks are classified within the ...

s. As with the " Chilean Blob" of 2003, many are masses of whale

blubber Blubber is a thick layer of Blood vessel, vascularized adipose tissue under the skin of all cetaceans, pinnipeds, penguins, and sirenians. It was present in many marine reptiles, such as Ichthyosauria, ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs. Description ...

released from decaying whale corpses. Others initially thought to be dead

plesiosaur The Plesiosauria or plesiosaurs are an Order (biology), order or clade of extinct Mesozoic marine reptiles, belonging to the Sauropterygia. Plesiosaurs first appeared in the latest Triassic Period (geology), Period, possibly in the Rhaetian st ...

s later turned out to be the decayed carcasses of

basking shark The basking shark (''Cetorhinus maximus'') is the second-largest living shark and fish, after the whale shark. It is one of three Planktivore, plankton-eating shark species, along with the whale shark and megamouth shark. Typically, basking sh ...

s. Others remain unexplained.

Giant In folklore, giants (from Ancient Greek: ''wiktionary:gigas, gigas'', cognate wiktionary:giga-, giga-) are beings of humanoid appearance, but are at times prodigious in size and strength or bear an otherwise notable appearance. The word ''gia ...

and

colossal squid The colossal squid (''Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni'') is a species of very large squid belonging to the family Cranchiidae, that of the cockatoo squids or glass squids. It is sometimes called the Antarctic cranch squid or giant squid (not to b ...

may also explain some globsters, particularly those tentatively identified as monster

octopus An octopus (: octopuses or octopodes) is a soft-bodied, eight-limbed mollusc of the order Octopoda (, ). The order consists of some 300 species and is grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids, cuttlefish, and nautiloids. Like oth ...

es. Some globsters were examined only after they had decomposed too much and seemed to represent evidence of a new species, or were destroyed—as happened with the "'' Cadborosaurus willsi''" carcass, found in 1937. However, Canadian scientists did analyse the DNA of the Newfoundland Blob—which revealed that the tissue was from a

sperm whale The sperm whale or cachalot (''Physeter macrocephalus'') is the largest of the toothed whales and the largest toothed predator. It is the only living member of the Genus (biology), genus ''Physeter'' and one of three extant species in the s ...

. In their resulting paper, the authors point out a number of superficial similarities between the Newfoundland Blob and other globsters, concluding a similar origin for those globsters is likely. Analyses of other globsters have yielded similar results.Pierce, S., G. Smith, T. Maugel & E. Clark 1995
On the Giant Octopus (''Octopus giganteus'') and the Bermuda Blob: homage to A. E. Verrill.
''Biological Bulletin'' 188: 219–230.Pierce, S., S. Massey, N. Curtis, G. Smith, C. Olavarría & T. Maugel 2004
Microscopic, biochemical, and molecular characteristics of the Chilean Blob and a comparison with the remains of other sea monsters: nothing but whales.
''Biological Bulletin'' 206: 125–133.

Notable globsters

The following is a chronological list of carcasses that have been described as globsters or blobs in the literature.Ellis, R. 1994. ''Monsters of the Sea''. Robert Hale, London. * Stronsay Beast (1808)—believed to be a basking shark carcass. * St. Augustine Monster (1896)—identified as a whale carcass. *

Trunko Trunko is the nickname for a large unidentified lump of flesh or a decomposed sea creature, a so-called "globster", reportedly sighted in Margate, KwaZulu-Natal, Margate, South Africa on 25 October 1924. The initial source for Trunko was an ar ...

(1924)—not identified. * Tasmanian Globster (1960)—identified as a whale carcass. * New Zealand Globster (1965)—identified as a whale carcass. * Zuiyo-maru carcass (1977)—most likely the carcass of a basking shark. * Bermuda Blob (1988)—identified as a whale carcass. * Nantucket Blob (1996)—identified as a whale carcass. * Bermuda Blob 2 (1997)—identified as a whale carcass. * Chilean Blob (2003)—identified as a whale carcass.

References

{{reflist, 30em Cryptozoology

History

Notable globsters

See also

References