As the team aboard the Exploration Vessel Nautilus roamed the sea surrounding the Channel Islands last week, they came across a strange purple blob settled into a rocky ledge. With small bumps across its body, the creature's shining pink core was visible through its outer membrane, but the Nautilus team wasn’t able to immediately identify the blob.
On the team’s video of the finding, a researcher can be heard guessing that it’s an octopus on first glance. But zooming in, they become perplexed.
“Oh, what is that?” one researcher says.