Featured image credit: Twitter/Mr.Syndicate
There have been reports of weird, brown balls washing up on British beaches and everyone's a bit confused.
They kind of look like baseballs that have made their way over from the States... like messages in a bottle.
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According to Daily Mail, they've been spotted on the Devon and Cornwall coastlines. The Mail spoke to Jess Arnieson who found one in Cornwall, and she had this incredibly insight: "We want the experts to examine them and let us know if they are safe, because quite frankly they are really weird and a bit scary."
Well, everyone just needs to calm the fuck down. They're not alien eggs or ancient baseballs or anything of the sort.
They're just a friendly, harmless sea potato. Well, the shells of them.
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Honestly, the name 'sea potato' has proper given me the giggles. What even is that?!
Well the truth isn't very funny, sadly. Sea potatoes (despite having a hilarious name) are a species of urchin formally known as Echinocardium Cordatum.
The ones that have washed ashore were part of a 'mass death' that could be the worst in 'decades'. The little fellas live buried deep in mud and sand along the coast. However, there has recently been a spell of particularly calm seas. This has led to a thick blanket of plankton to form over the sea bed and sadly suffocated the sea potatoes.
Jess continued with her amazingly helpful account: "There were hundreds of them stretching away as far as you could see along the shoreline - it was quite incredible.
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"Luckily I'd left my daughter Sophie, who's four, with her dad at our holiday flat.
"I'm glad she wasn't with me to come into contact with them. I managed to keep Rupert away too.
"The ones I saw were a bit smaller than a football but it's possible there were some that were bigger... I didn't want to go any farther along the beach."
If you come across them, they're not dangerous but it is very sad.
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Words by Mel Ramsay
Featured Image Credit:Topics: Weird