© Cathy Hopkins, Daily Press
A single dislodged potato sponge floats near the mouth of the York River following Hurricane Irene.
A single dislodged potato sponge floats near the mouth of the York River following Hurricane Irene.
And you thought Hurricane Irene was done.
Beachgoers and boaters have reported finding mysterious gray blobs, some as large as a soccer ball, from Virginia to New York.
"They're pretty disgusting looking," said Cathy Hopkins of Hampton, who spotted dozens of the podlike orbs near the mouth of the Poquoson River
So, what are these UFOs - unfamiliar fishy organisms?
"They're potato sponges," said Emmett Duffy, a professor at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester Point.
The sponges - one variety of thousands worldwide - inhabit the sandy bottoms of shallow coastal waterways, Duffy said. Like oysters, they filter microscopic food from seawater.
They typically remain burrowed underwater unless something violent, such as a hurricane, forces them to the surface.
