While walking on the beach at Discovery Park this weekend, I discovered a strange object resting in the sand. (Pictured here; click here for larger view.)

In actual size it was about two feet wide, with a spongey, organic texture to it; when I touched it with my shoe I found it to be yielding but resilient. My first thought was that it was part of an animal but it had no odor to it and seemed whole. I can’t say for certain that it wasn’t manmade (a parks employee later explained that it’s common for parts of boats to become encrusted with little sea creatures) under the sea life growing on it, but it appeared to be all of a piece. Also, it had at one point been wrapped in a net a pieces of the surrounded it.

There were park employees and volunteers at several stations around the park as part of the Earth Day festivities, but they were all stumped, too.