Beach littered with thousands of mysterious orbs

It was a sunny end to the weekend in Mar del Plata, Argentina, and residents were spending some time on the local beach, but not to enjoy the weather or catch some waves.

Mar del Plata is located about 250 miles south of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and sits along the coast of the southwestern Atlantic Ocean, and on Sunday, that beach was covered in a plethora of “pearls.”

Thousands of white orbs littered the beach on April 25 in a spectacle unlike anything ever seen at the beach in the past.

“We normally see these on the coast, but we don’t see them at the density that we can see right now,” said marine biologist Alejandro Saubidet.

People from around the area trekked onto the beach to see the mysterious objects for themselves. Upon closer inspection, they were not valuable pearls that formed inside of oysters, but they did have origins from another sea creature.

The white balls were embryos of the carnivorous snail Adelomelon brasiliana, which lives near the coast of southern Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. An adult snail of this species can grow up to 8 inches in length.

“In general, they are found in the deep sea; however, certain movements that have to do with the tides or the wind cause these structures to rise and become deposited on the coast,” Saubidet said.

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A close-up look reveals the structure of the egg capsules that appeared to be filled with fluid and a few bubbles of air.

Pictures and videos from the scene show that some of the orbs have popped and deflated with the empty shells rolling across the beach whenever a breeze rolls by.

The snails that may eventually emerge from these egg capsules can go on to live for quite some time. The Adelomelon brasiliana snail species is known to live for as long as 20 years, according to the Stiftung Alfred-Wegener-Institut.

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