Mystery invertebrate / egg casing?? Hutchinson Island, FL
Posted by linesndots@reddit | marinebiology | View on Reddit | 5 comments
This stuff was washed up all over the beach with Sargassum after a week or so of rough surf. It’s rubbery, and the cavities are hollow like bubble wrap. Some of them had little brown balls inside that look like roe. The vacated cavities all have a perfect oval hole that reminds me of an operculum. What is it?? I thought bryozoan at first but then I found some with the little egg things still inside….
RoanokeSea@reddit
It looks like an egg casing from a marine gastropod. Mud snails lay similar, spikier sacs, and the creatures that hatch look very similar to the little brown balls in the sacs in the picture. I counted thousands of them for a professor one semester in grad school lol.
linesndots@reddit (OP)
That’s awesome that’s what I thought it was!! I’m so eager to find what kind of gastropod it could be. The most similar picture I saw was from Australia!
RoanokeSea@reddit
Now that I've had a chance to look it up, I think there's a good chance it's from the genus Tonna! There's at least a few species in that area. Here are some examples of their eggs: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?preferred_place_id=1&taxon_id=246678&term_id=1&term_value_id=7
Frodil@reddit
From the closeup I'd say bryozoan, but the first picture makes a strong case for egg case
Crustaceous_Cam@reddit
The empty part looked like bryozoans but idk. Eggs could definitely fit