Think The Blob is fiction? Think again. A living, throbbing, alien-like blob has turned up in a lagoon in Vancouver, British Columbia, but unlike its alien counterpart from the movies, this blob hasn’t eaten anyone… yet.
The blob we’re talking about has nothing to do with the planned film reboot starring Samuel L. Jackson. Instead, this blob is actually a living being called a bryozoan, which begins as an asexual single-cell organism known as Pectinatella magnifica that multiply until they form a giant colony of gelatinous little blobs. The end result looks like a brain and lives in fresh water, playing an important part in the ecosystem by eating microscopic organisms and filtering the water as it feeds. A group from the Stanley Park Ecology Society discovered a pond full of the gross-looking beasts near Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park, Vancouver in August, and judging from the video they released, they were actually quite pleased with their nasty discovery (scientists, amirite?).
We’ll have to keep our eyes peeled for more of these disgusting balls of slime, but if any show up at your local movie theater, then you’ll know it’s time to run.
Title image courtesy of TriStar Pictures
