On 27/06/2020 19:44, polygonum_on_google wrote:
On Saturday, 27 June 2020 16:42:13 UTC+1, Clive Arthur wrote:
On 26/06/2020 11:17, polygonum_on_google wrote:
Have recently seen many small curved objects on the beach. They appear to be just sand - pick one up and it breaks up into nothing but sand. Therefore, I rather assume they are some sort of cast. Possibly some sort of protein binding it all together.

Each one is something like 75 mm long.

Across the beach there must be untold thousands:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/iyu0ebxod0...small.jpg?dl=0

And, close-up, moved onto a black background:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/stlif4xstw...small.jpg?dl=0

I have tried image searches - Google, TinEye, Bing. Nothing I've found so far matches!

Any good ideas about how to preserve one - as a specimen? Obviously, without changing its look. Has to be a simple technique using pretty safe materials as it would have to be done on a public beach.


They might be fish swim bladders. These are a delicacy in themselves in
some places and can also be used to make isinglass. Perhaps somehow a
consignment was lost overboard. They're very fine and I could well
imagine sand would stick to them.

Don't think I'd ever have thought of them!


Damn right. And why would you? But I am intrigued by the lateral thought.