“AN OCEAN without unnamed monsters,” wrote John Steinbeck, “would be like sleep without dreams.” But the dream that a new species of sea monster washed up in Chile last year is over. Marine biologists have definitively shown that the “Chilean Blob” and other similar mysteries are simply the remains of whales.
In July 2003, a 13-tonne blob of amorphous tissue rolled ashore in Los Muermos, Chile. Local marine biologists could find no bones in it, prompting speculation that it might be the body of a new species of giant octopus. Even the discovery of the unique dermal glands of the…
