Scientists have found what creature the eyeball washed up on the beach comes from

Oct 16, 2012 08:38 GMT  ·  By

Wildlife officials are convinced that the giant blue eyeball washed up on Pompano Beach, in Florida belongs to a large swordfish.

The extremely large eyeball has grabbed everyone's attention, as it was washed ashore still warm and covered in blood, as if it was ripped out of a large marine animal's socket.

Wildlife experts contacted by LiveScience are leaning towards the eye coming from a swordfish, CBS News reports.

Eric Warrant, vision expert at the University of Lund in Sweden, claims he has come across similar eyeballs in his research on swordfish eyes. Many are still challenging this assumption, as it is most likely for fish eyes to come in pairs as they are swept on the shore.

"You usually don't find random floating eyes of any animal," biologist Sonke Johnsen of Duke University said.

Research has eliminated a squid from the possible solutions to this mystery, because of the shape of the iris.

“Squid have w-shaped irises when they aren't fully open,” Trevor Wardill, a research associate at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, told LiveScience.