A strange creature that actually exists on Earth has been nicknamed “the blob,” and it’s a weird organism that lacks a brain, mouth, eyes or even a stomach.
But the most bizarre element of all is that it has 720 sexes.
It seems like a creature from another planet, but it exists right here on earth and was recently revealed in an exhibit at the Paris Zoological Park in France.
Nature’s weirdest living creature
It appears like a bright-yellow slime, yet it can protrude vein-ish like tendrils. It was featured at the Paris zoo gripping itself around the branches of a tree.
Because of its bizarre shape, scientists nicknamed it after the antagonistic creature in the 1958 science fiction horror movie “the blob.” Its scientific name is hysarum polycephalum plasmodium.
Strange characteristics
The list of strange characteristics of this unicellular organism is bizarre, to say the least:
- No brain.
- Can move without legs or arms.
- Can heal itself within minutes after being cut in two.
- Can detect and digest food, but has no mouth or stomach.
- Has no eyes.
- One “blob” can transmit knowledge to another “blob.”
- It has almost 720 sexes.
The thing from another world?
Scientists themselves readily admit they’re not quite sure what this creature is.
“We know for sure it is not a plant but we don’t really if it’s an animal or a fungus,” said Bruno David, director of the Paris Museum of Natural History.
“It behaves very surprisingly for something that looks like a mushroom.”
“It has the behavior of an animal,” David said and added, “it is able to learn. If you merge two blobs, the one that has learned will transmit its knowledge to the other.”
So just what is it?
This scientific uncertainty raises the question of whether this is an organism that even evolved on Earth to begin with? Could it have come from another world?
Could it have been delivered by an asteroid? It seems to have many characteristics that are simply not of the type found with the type of creatures that have evolved on this planet.
Amanda Weaver
