Sea ball on a sandy beach
Sea balls (also known as Aegagropila or Pillae marinae) are tightly packed balls of fibrous marine material, recorded from the seashore. They vary in size but are generally up to in size. In
Edgartown
Edgartown is a tourist destination on the island of Martha's Vineyard in Dukes County, Massachusetts, United States, for which it is the county seat.
It was once a major whaling port, with historic houses that have been carefully preserved. Tod ...
,
a longish sea ball around in diameter has been found. Others have been reported at
Dingle Bay
Dingle Bay (''Bá an Daingin'' in Irish) is a bay located in County Kerry, western Ireland. The outer parts of the Dingle Peninsula and Dingle Bay mark one of the westernmost points of mainland Ireland. The harbour town of Dingle lies on the n ...
in Ireland and at Valencia, Spain. They may occur in hundreds and are composed of plant material, in majority
seagrass
Seagrasses are the only flowering plants which grow in marine environments. There are about 60 species of fully marine seagrasses which belong to four families (Posidoniaceae, Zosteraceae, Hydrocharitaceae and Cymodoceaceae), all in the orde ...
rhizome
In botany and dendrology, a rhizome (; , ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from axillary buds and grow hori ...
netting torn out by water movement.
In recent years they have been shown to contain more and more
plastic marine debris and even
microplastics
Microplastics are fragments of any type of plastic less than in length, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the European Chemicals Agency. They cause pollution by entering natural ecosystems from a v ...
.
[Anna Sanchez‐Vidal, Miquel Canals, William P. de Haan, Javier Romero, Marta Veny: ''Seagrasses provide a novel ecosystem service by trapping marine plastics'', ''Scientific Reports'', 2021, 11, S. 254, ''nature research'', published online 14.1.2021. ]
Gallery
Haarball3.jpg, A small sea ball
Seeballotrp.jpg, A sea ball pulled apart, with a 1 euro coin
The 1 euro coin (€1) is a euro coin with a value of one euro. It is made of two alloys: the inner part of cupronickel, the outer part of nickel brass. All coins have a common reverse side and country-specific national sides. The coin has been u ...
for scale
Aegagropiles rejetés sur une plage de sable.jpg, Sea balls occasionally drift ashore en masse, seen here on a beach in Sanary-sur-Mer
Sanary-sur-Mer (, literally ''Sanary on Sea''; oc, Sant Nari), popularly known as Sanary, is a commune in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, Southeastern France. In 2018, it had a population of 16,696. Sanary-sur-Mer is ...
, France
Deutsches Apothekenmuseum - Pilae marinae.jpg, Sea balls in an historic collection
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sea balls
Aquatic ecology
Ecotoxicology
Ocean pollution
Oceanographical terminology
Waste
