Disturbing 'glowing' orange pods resembling dinosaur eggs discovered for 'first time' in river

When you think we've finally discovered everything on planet Earth, something new springs up and shocks us all.

And as we approach spooky season, many have been left freaked out by some disturbing 'glowing' orange pods that seem to resemble dinosaur eggs.

I mean, how are we talking about dinosaurs in 2024? The creature went extinct a whopping 65 million years ago, after living on Earth for around 165 million years.

Nonetheless, the orange pods are said to resemble a glowing dinosaur egg, with experts left a little confused as to why they were found in a canal in the Dutch city of Utrecht.

The 'glowing' orange pods were found recently (Lies Konig/Stadecologen Utrecht)

Scientists quickly worked out the strange-looking pods are a colony of Bryozoans, which are often described as a dinosaur-egg looking shape.

A definition of Bryozoans on the Monterey Bay Aquarium website explains: "Bryozoans are small invertebrates that expand from a party of one to a colony of thousands, which might encrust an entire kelp blade. The individual bryozoan — called a zooid — lives within a box-shaped compartment made of calcium carbonate and chitin, a material found in crab shells. Zooids are tiny, perhaps no taller than 1/32 of an inch."

The website went on to state there are roughly 4,000 species in the Bryozoa sphere, making it widespread indeed.

They use minuscule mobile pincers - known as avicularia - to remove any settlers that land on them, while it continues to develop in unexpected ways.

If a piece of the pod unfortunately falls off, then all is not lost as the piece can continue to grow to a good size as it will form a new colony.

A red-rust bryozoan under the Stearn's Wharf pier in Santa Barbara (Getty Stock Photo)

While Bryozoans can be found across the globe, they are most commonly discovered in kelp forests and rocky shores, so experts were left a little puzzled after discovering them in a Dutch canal.

Local ecologist Anne Nijs told AD that such discovery is never seen in the Netherlands, so some work as to how it got there is underway.

"The big bag is formed by several animals together. At a certain point they form a colony and different colonies can then stick together again. A bag can become 2 meters in diameter. That bag then attaches itself to something," the expert stated.

"It is the first time that they have been discovered here. So it is a very special story."

While the discovery may look rather disgusting, Nijs added it is in now way harmful.

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