A team of marine biologists from Luxembourg who were exploring the Mediterranean coast on Thursday reported finding a new aquatic species, one made entirely of plastic. The animal roughly measures 40 centimeters long and appears to move around with the help of drinking straw appendages.
“This is a simple case of adapting to the environment,” said Steffen Wolf, the University of Wiltz researcher who first reported the find. “This critter, whatever its ancestors used to be, obviously had difficulties finding food that was not polluted with plastic, so it said to itself: what the hell have I got to lose?”
“And it went bezerk, gobbling up all the plastic bits it could find, probably having to really force it down the first few times,” Wolf continued. “Well, then it most likely found a mate that had also been gorging on plastic, so they got together and made a bunch of babies out of plastic.”
“By this time, their offspring were enjoying that smooth polymer goodness, so they went nuts, kept feasting, and gave birth to more plastic critters, because that’s how reproduction works.”
“This thing will be an apex predator in no time,” he added.
The six biologists had been attending a conference in Nice, France when they decided to leave early, drink beer by the sea all afternoon, and then on a dare swim out as far as they could.