Could this giant eyeball be a cruel Halloween prank, a terrifying mystery, or a piece of a strange sea creature?
A large eyeball washed ashore this past week on Pompano Beach in South Florida. It is said to be 27 cm (10.6 inches) wide! Cuts were also found all over the eyeball, suggesting that previous fisherman had caught it with their hooks and set it back into the sea.
How was the eyeball found? It all started when the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission posted a photograph of the eye on Facebook with the caption: “The FWC Tequesta Field Lab received a call that a citizen from Pompano Beach found what appeared to be a giant eye. Our staff in South Florida picked it up and placed it on ice. It will be sent for possible identification.”
As it turns out, the eyeball was not from a Halloween prank, but a sea squid! Professor Heather Bracken-Grissom has confirmed that the lens and pupil of the eye matched perfectly to those found in a sea squid’s eye. She also went on to say that a squid’s eye can easily dislodge and grow to be the size of a soccer ball!
The eyeball is now being kept at a facility in Florida for further research and for now, no new one-eyed sea monsters have been reported.
(Photo Credit: AP Photo/Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission)