As if squid aren’t fascinating and frightening enough on their own, some species lay eggs that are fascinating and a little frightening themselves. One lucky undersea photographer was recently able to snap some shots of the bizarre, rarely seen egg tube of the diamond squid, and it is something to behold.

As Live Science is reporting, Jay Wink, owner of Abc Scuba Diving Port Douglas in Queensland, Australia, caught these images of a translucent, pink, worm-like mass that looks like it is about to engulf the diver floating nearby. After Wink posted his photos to the internet, many speculated that it was some kind of pyrosome, a colonial animal also called a “sea pickle.”

The eggs are thought to come from a diamond squid, a species that is fished in Japanese waters, but is also found in other tropical and subtropical waters. The species lays its tiny eggs in long strings of pink beads that wrap around a gelatinous core like a slinky, and float on the currents, probably unattended by the parents. The mass could contain between 20,000 and 40,000 tiny squid. Any that make it to adulthood could grow to up to three feet long.