Mysterious giant eyeball washes up on Florida beach

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A softball-sized eyeball from an unknown creature has washed up on a beach in Florida. According to the Orlando Sentinel, Gino Covacci was taking a morning walk along Pompano Beach when he spotted the blue orb bobbing in the tide.

Placing it in a plastic bag, he walked home and put it into the refrigerator, figuring that it was something unusual.

“It was very, very fresh,” he told the Sentinel. “It was still bleeding when I put it in the plastic bag.”

Covacci contacted police, who directed him to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, who were also stymied as to what animal the eye could have come from.

Wildlife Commission spokesperson Carli Segelson said that wildlife officials packed the eye in ice and forwarded it to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg.

Charles Messing, of Nova Southeastern University’s Oceanographic Center, said that there are fish large enough off the coast of Florida to have an eye of this size. He said that he can’t rule out a giant squid, but that the eye probably came from one of the native fish species, like tuna or swordfish.

Segelson said that it may take some time for scientists to identify the eye, but at this juncture, “it sounds like a large fish is the leading candidate.”

Watch video about this story, embedded via the Orlando Sentinel, below: