Did you know that sailors’ eyeballs can be found bobbing in the sea? But don’t worry – they’re not actual eyeballs. These curious blobs are a type of algae known as Valonia ventricosa, and they’re one of the largest single-celled organisms on our planet.
The size of these “eyeballs” can vary from a tiny speck the size of a pinhead to a sizable ball resembling, well, an eyeball. The determining factor of their size lies within the contents of their vacuole, which is the space inside the cell wall.
V. ventricosa is unicellular, but it can house the nuclei of multiple cells thanks to its coenocytic nature. In other words, it’s made up of a mass of cytoplasm containing numerous cell nuclei that aren’t separated by a cell wall.
Interestingly, if you burst one of these sailor’s eyeballs, it can lead to the growth of more V. ventricosa. They only need one cell nucleus to sprout into new organisms, as reported by Science Alert.
Very silvery indeed.
And believe it or not, they can “pop”. The cytoplasm vacuole contains nuclei arranged in lobes radiating from its center, creating an interior that’s described by the New Heaven Reef Conservation Program as “something like a Tesla plasma ball”.
Divers often come across these intriguing sailor’s eyeballs floating through coral reefs in tropical and subtropical ocean regions. Their colors range from vivid green to black, and at times, even silvery due to the unique structure of their cell walls’ cellulose crystals.
The shimmering appearance of these algae brings to mind the “golden egg” mystery encountered by the NOAA Ocean Exploration team when they stumbled upon an alien-like shiny orb on the seabed of Alaska. Similarly, the sailor’s eyeballs are as mysterious as they come.
So, while the mysterious underwater objects in Alaska might have researchers baffled, the sailor’s eyeballs simply want to be left alone. So, please refrain from bursting these peculiar jelly blobs!
