This little duck is exactly 11 millimeters across the bottom or .43 inches. Here he is pictured just as we found him, with a couple of nurdles—pre-production plastic pellets. To see it in the swirl of tons of other plastic takes a sharp eye and lots of practice. Judith gets the prize for her awesome skill at pattern recognition.
We sent the pic of our duck on to our friend Curtis Ebbesmeyer, author with Eric Scigliano of FLOTSAMETRICS AND THE FLOATING WORLD: How One Man’s Obsession with Runaway Sneakers and Rubber Ducks Revolutionized Ocean Science. Curt is the oceanographer who uses cargo spills to track currents, most famously tracking a bunch of spilled rubber duckies. We surmised that maybe our diminutive duck had been at sea so long it shrunk?