What The Hell Is That?

There aren't many things I love as much as finding something underwater that I've never seen before.  Conversely, few things then drive me crazier than not being able to find out what it was I was looking at. 

Case in point, the green globule on the right.  I first found a bunch of these about ten years ago, scattered over a muck bottom.  Most were about the size of a marble.  A few were larger.  

By themselves, they were only marginally interesting.  But almost all were covered in tangles of some type of weird polychaete worm.  The worms were also on the bottom right beside the globs.  But I found none any distance from them.  It was as if the worms were rising up from the muck right there and then swarming over them.

In the years since, I've seen and photographed these globules on a regular basis – again, almost always covered with worms.   I once collected two to see what would happen over time but they collapsed on themselves within a day.  I've asked more people than I can count for an explanation – including all of my usual go-to experts – but have never received anything close to an answer. 

My best guess is that the globules are some kind of egg mass that the worms are feeding on – the same guess I had the first time I saw them.  But then again, maybe the globs are the worms’ own egg masses and they’re contributing to them.  Or maybe they’re algae that has somehow become worked into balls and the worms are – well, in that case I don’t know what the worms are doing.

Like I said, driving me a little crazy.