Featured Image Credit: Instagram/@stadsecoloog.utrecht/Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
A strange glowing orange ‘blob’ has been discovered in a river and it’s left scientists baffled.
The alien-looking blob is beginning to spread rapidly and it has had ecologists very puzzled as to what it could be.
Found in the Netherlands, it appeared to be an orange glowing bag that was hanging on the bottom of a floating island.
However, all was not as it seemed.
On further inspection, it was found that the blob is actually a living creature - they are animals that form together to create a colony.
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Known officially as bryozoans, the animals are small invertebrates that can form in groups of thousands.
The actual animals themselves are tiny, each being just a fraction of a millimeter long.
When together, they make a bag shape, which is how they were found in the Dutch city of Utrecht.
Speaking to AP, ecologist Anne Nijs said: “This was hanging on the bottom of a floating island. These are animals that form a colony together: water bag bryozoans.
“Multiple colonies can grow together into floating bags of up to two meters in diameter. In America they are also called ‘the blob’.”
The blobs are commonly found in the United States and have since spread around the world in the last 100 years.
According to Nijs: “Since 1990 the species has appeared all over Western Europe and is spreading rapidly.”
The first actual sighting of the blob in Europe was in Germany in 1883.
But some sightings of them that have happened a lot more recently have sparked conspiracy theories.
People have mistaken them for something extra terrestrial like alien egg pods, due to their unusual appearance.
One of these incidents happened earlier this year when huge amounts of the bags were found in a reservoir in Oklahoma.
However, despite their bizarre appearance, the blobs very much belong on Earth and mainly survive off bacteria and phytoplankton which are found in the water.
The colonies can take on a variety of unusual forms. These include fans, sheets and bushes.
The strange creatures are zooids, which is the term used for a single animal that is part of a colonial animal.
The bryozoan has both male and female sex organs, meaning that they have the ability to clone themselves.
If one breaks off from the rest of the group, it can reproduce asexually, which is part of the reason why they are rapidly spreading.
