What on earth is this whale-sized sea creature? (Video)

No, this is not something from a horror film. Divers in Tasmania, Australia, came across this huge tubular sea creature that can grow as a big as a sperm whale (we're talking up to 60ft).

The creature, called a pyrosome, looks like a giant sea worm and, apparently, the ocean is full of them. This one was caught on camera by the Eaglehawk Dive Centre.

So what exactly is it? Mnn.com explains: "Pyrosomes might look like giant sea worms, but they're actually hollow on the inside. And while they appear to be a single organism, they are colonies of individual creatures that have banded together for a common purpose.

"Exactly how these massive colonies coordinate their behaviour is still being studied, but researchers suspect they communicate through light signalling."

These colonies are made up of hundreds to thousands of individuals, known as zooids.

Each zooid opens both to the inside and outside of the "tube", drawing in ocean water from the outside to its internal filtering mesh called the branchial basket, extracting the microscopic plant cells on which it feeds, and then expelling the filtered water to the inside of the cylinder of the colony.

According to Wikipedia, pyrosomes are planktonic, which means their movements are largely controlled by currents, tides, and waves in the oceans. On a smaller scale, however, each colony can move itself slowly by the process of jet propulsion, created by the coordinated beating of cilia in the branchial baskets of all the zooids, which also create feeding currents.

Pyrosomes are brightly bioluminescent, flashing a pale blue-green light that can be seen for many tens of metres.

They are not thought to be dangerous, however, reports MNN, it's not advised to swim inside its hollow tube (like we ever would).

One diver said he once saw a 6.5 foot specimen with a dead penguin trapped inside.

K Gowlett-Holmes told Deep Sea News: "The penguin had obviously swum in the open end of the tube then couldn't turn – it was jammed in the apex of the pyrosome and its beak was just poking through the colony matrix.

"Even fairy penguins are quite strong – the fact it could not break free shows just how tough some pyrosomes are."

Related articles

Mystery sea monster washes up on beach in Russia

Fisherman finds 'alien' sea creature with 100 tentacles

Mysterious red blob washes up on beach in Australia