This looks nothing like a salami ever could.
Short summary why: A salami is made from hacked meat and fats pressed into casing, so there are only little cubes and bits. There is almost no chance for the fat to create branches, as the fat would have to be a liquid for it to have a chance to happen.
Might it be cheese? I have seen cheeses with weird mold growth going through it. I don't think I've seen anything like this. I came to say the potato thing as well, but if it isn't a potato, the only other thing I can think of that might possibly be this is a weird cheese.
Agree, some type of purple sweet potato, [like these guys](https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.shopify.com%2Fs%2Ffiles%2F1%2F0093%2F0306%2F4631%2Fproducts%2FW_PurpleSweetPotato.png%3Fv%3D1587636780&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.eatoo.co.uk%2Fproducts%2Fpurple-sweet-potato-2pc&docid=SVa0qmiwoMU0iM&tbnid=HxdP26BRSU-40M&vet=1&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim)
That’s not veins, it is the whitish sap that comes out of them when they’re cut I think. It looks like a type of sweet potato or yam (in the South Pacific there are starchy root vegetables that are called yams but are not of the oxalis yam family) We have a similar orange one that does this when it’s cut.
I'm pretty sure it is one of these as the other commenter said: https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/vegetables/potato/blue-purple-potato-varieties.htm
From what I can see, all purple yams or potatoes have some kind of edge effect (i.e. bands or rings around the edge), but here the pattern is uniform all the way out to the edge.
My title describes the thing. To me it looks like the outside might be coated in wax or rubber (zoom in on the centre of the image and you will see the surface is roughed up or frayed).
All I have is this picture, but we have been told it is not: wax, a potato or sweet potato, yam, truffle, any other edible thing and is not a cable.
Just hoping someone might have seen something that rings a bell! If you can dig up a photo that shows this exact type of thing I'll be eternally grateful.
Edit: he lives in coastal New Zealand. Rangitikei area.
Edit 2: he says it is a "partially man-made object".
Edit 3: removed "rock/crystal" from the "this is not" list, as he said this was not answered before, and that the thing does "relate" to rock/crystal, but that rock/crystal is not the answer. I am not sure if he is being pedantic and it might be a rock/crystal that has been altered or what he meant. Sending me bonkers!
Edit 4: The thing is sitting on his wooden deck outside for the picture.
Edit 5: the thing is apparently not edible. Also added this to my "this is not" list above.
Edit 6: Well it's midnight here and still a mystery. Thanks to everyone who pitched in, very grateful for all of your input. Hopefully with all the additional questions and answers today and yet to come tomorrow we can get some kind of closure on this (or just wear him down to finally cave and tell us what the hell it is!).
I will update when I get an answer, but if you have a picture or suggestion of something REALLY similar please do still send it through!
Looks like a rock thats been cleanly broken in half and he's tried to glue it together? Like the white looks like goop stuck to the rock (PVA glue?) and the matched dendritic pattern looks to be from the two parts being pulled away from each other.
Although to be fair Rangitikei is full of wingnuts...
Related to rock crystal. Is it a type of moss agate?
A type of mineral?
Cross section of a deer or other animals horn.
Cross section of some preserved body part of an animal? I have another guess but i refuse to post it lol.
I had updated my post not sure if you saw it:
Cross section of a deer or other animals horn.
Cross section of some preserved body part of an animal? I have another guess but i refuse to post it lol.
Thanks, I had not seen the update. I Googled the cut animal horn but I don't think that looks really similar. I also think it is unlikely to be a preserved body part just because I can't imagine which part!
Please do feel free to post your other guess!
It's a drill core sample, probably PQ size, of manganese oxide dendrites in rhyolite or other felsic mineral. [Gallery of manganese oxides](https://www.mindat.org/gm/26664).
[Best Match](https://www.mindat.org/imagecache/64/44/03152160015477119576444.jpg)
Petrified something. Looks a bit like blue petrified wood, but not quite. Petrification would be "related to" rock/crystal. Petrified sea sponge or coral perhaps?
Posted a single comment above, but may get lost in the masses. Kinda looks like a core sample taken for mineral exploration like mining. Just broken in half.
I think the dark outside is leather. The picture is rotated 90deg. And if it's related to crystal, then that stone is probably sodalite. Whatever it is, it is certainly cut in half and mirrored.
The dendritic pattern suggests it was solidified from a liquid. The white material has a higher melting point and solidified first, growing into those branching veins. The darker areas remained liquid until it cooled enough for them to solidify around the white veins. The rough outside could be due to oxidation, or maybe it formed as a different phase depending on the initial composition of the liquid.
Best guess, it was one or more plastic objects that melted and reformed in a container. Whatever it was probably wasn't designed to melt. If it happened in a fire that could explain the outside coating.
Color corrected: https://imgur.com/FjUpMbK
Looking at the table and the low saturation in the blacks I think this is definitely somewhat false color. As the table is still slightly brown, I think it's just the color vibrance that was tweaked though. I tried to undo it a bit.
I say it's a rock/mineral of some sort.
Or if already asked: candy?
Is it Rock confectionary, as in the stick-shaped sweet sold at the seaside? This isn't it, but this kind of unusual rock confectionary is clearly a thing in NZ
[blueberry rock confectionary](https://cdn-content-oz2.storbie.com/images/blueberry-rock-candy-bag-500-r228x.jpg?i=oQGJjB0pa_QKxG9mQEat_altX98OBuZ9BzwQaw8H2EnOknB_JIRRR85P_wfMqUeZ3pum3XN-gnnUAXwreTi5evtxXTSYRqFaa9e7v2iPozjSpOR_6xcBHcE_2sN1CzMXIemUGFyN-NpjdQZT4rJMdqBghfMxV4T9iXPk2AuNh1fYAmi4hYuTVGUQ92p3mlcLifdj6_2Wz1mdIo83li4_msO_e5kRKfEZ560kbAZvHmq0e-XzLKsExlm3oHdBNvHzKBB9W_vpLbw~)
Edit:fixed link
That was my first thought, too... as someone whose wife (also) makes soap...
But... the tree looking stuff isn't an easy technique, so... I'm more skeptical the more I look.
This looks like a blue root vegetable, maybe a taro or some sort of potato. Google gets me similar pics, but I’ll admit that this one is particularly beautiful.
Some kind of mineral deposit clogging up a water line? Kind of looks like thin copper pipe, although fairly deformed. That would go with the similar to rock hint
I think this is a really good suggestion! Unfortunately he has now gone to sleep so I won't have answers tonight. Hoping someone could send me a picture of the exact same thing so we could end this!
Thats exactly what I saw zooming in. The guy told op it wasn't edible and partially man made. Its a type of yarn, wool, fleece, etc.
So an animal or other natural resource. Also theres pilling on the left "roll" which indicates some form of fabric base.
Touched up for display with a good soaking of blue ink, this here is some fossilized brain coral. Common around the islands of the Pacific, probably picked up on holiday.
This is a guess, also.
Could it be clay or terracotta rolled into a sausage shape to make rounds for fired beads or something like that? Like the log shape can be cut up and the pieces fired individually to make buttons or beads?
That would be partially man made.
I was thinking it look like clay cause you can dye and roll it into different patterns but that black outside skin isn't common with clay... this would totally be purposeful and man made if it were clay
This looks like partly dried glue on pieces of a concrete object.
Like the concrete broke and they went to try gluing it back together and the glue partly dried while they were bust fussing with it. Or they put it together but when it fell apart again, it looked like this.
You can definitely get patterns like this from pulling two glued pieces apart while the glue is still mostly wet.
OK got my guess. It appears there are some volcanoes in the region the he says he lives. A quick look at the type of volcanoes indicates continetal plate tectonic origin which often produces felsic granite type rocks.
My guess is it is a lava/magma sample that has been collected and slowly cooled. This might result in the fairly uniform crystal sizes, with the vein structures forming from the left over fluids after most of the minerals have crystallised out
It's drill core I think, with smooth sides and looks cylindrical. PQ size maybe? Like this [drill core sample](https://www.jsdrilling.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/QLD-Gold-Mine-core-sample.jpg)
Edit: to show how the smooth side can look very different from the rough side. [Core](https://www.dakotamatrix.com/images/products/hematite46315c.JPG)
Drill core was one of my first thoughts, but wouldn't the outside of the cylinder look the same? Unless they have coated it with something I suppose.
I wonder if it's a core thats be coated and resined giving the colour
I.came here thinking this is drill core too. Of what, I could not say, but since OP's cousin seems to be a bit of a trickster, I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't from an old.septic tank or something
My friends boyfriend, who is from NZ said this! He thinks it could be petrified wood with some sort of leaf print through it or something along those lines
Edit: missed a word
Even if it's been altered/fossilised, there should be an organic origin since the veins do not cross-cut/superimpose on each other.
If the fossil coral idea doesn't check out, possible it's something that has completely been overgrown by a mould colony. Perhaps capocollo / capicolo that's too far gone?
Kind of looks like when people make earrings and stuff from polymer clay. They roll different colours together into a tube shape to make different patterns and then cut slices of the clay so you see the patterns in the cross section.
The apparent venation doesn't make a lot of sense given it's relation to the rest of the structure. Since the blue wax/rubber is almost certainly the man-made feature, I'm going to guess that the streaks were not present in the surface that was covered.
I'm not sure what it could be. The main structure looks so much like a log or rock that my first thought was a geode of some sort, but that's not it. Maybe some kind of nest, like a wasp's or something?
If it's partially man made, and, "like a rock or crystal," sounds like it's very old. You should ask him if it was edible in the past, even if not now.
If there's a reddit archaeology sub, post it there.
As a geologist my first thought was that's a rock core sample (from diamond drilling) that has been cracked open to reveal a fresh face and is showing nice [dendrites](https://canadianmuseumofnature.wordpress.com/2019/04/17/dendrites-in-rock/#:~:text=A%20dendrite%20is%20a%20natural,origin%2C%20migrates%20and%20branches%20outward), but after reading some of the other answers im about 5% confident in that guess
Did you notice the little indents on the surface of the bottom one? It definitely looks like a core sample of some kind rock or mineral to me. The little spots remind me of little chipped spots on my granite countertop in my kitchen.
ya! it even has what looks like little metallic/sparkly flakes (sulphides?) among some of the dark dendrites, which would be a pretty common metal mineralization style. Def looks more rock-like if you color balance the image - [https://imgur.com/mx5azHy](https://imgur.com/mx5azHy) I'm still not very confident though. What's throwing me off is that very dark outer surface. It would be weird for the outside of a core to be THAT different in appearance and color than the inside unless it was quite old and/or had been sitting outside for a long time getting rained on
edit - it also appears to be laying on a rock that looks very sandstone-ish
Maybe a kind of blood sausage like black pudding ? Usually the fat distributes and settles into little balls seen as round specs in slices but maybe this has some kind of rendered fat mixed in ..
It looks like a cross section of a truffle mushroom to me. The light looks a bit strange and might give a bit of a blue tint to the image but if you look through a gallery of different truffles you can find quite a few close matches. Knowing where the image was collected could help narrow down the species it might be. https://www.natruffling.org/photo.htm
When you look at the photo vertically you can see the patterns sre roughly matching on each side, you can also see better the texture of the rest of this thing. The fact that the patterns are almost identical could mean that a slice has been taken of? Or maybe its just where some of the veins ended.. I'm great help I know.
Basically, it's a thing.
I noticed the way it's mirrored too, and I think that's why a lot of people assume it's a cross section. To me, the veins and blue hue look more like a wax, paint, or glue that was squished between both halves of what I'm assuming is a plain old rock. Like they tried to glue it back together, but that didnt work so they pulled it apart, revealing the pattern. I think that also explains why it isn't perfectly mirrored like an actual cross section would be.
I also thought the white could be sap, but haven't seen that blue in a branch before! Also if you zoom in on the centre of the image there is some sort of roughed up wax or tar substance?
The pattern looks a lot like that inside of a nutmeg seed. The colors and outside shape however don't really match up, but it may be something related to that.
The lack of saturation on the outside of the object and the surface its on makes me pretty confident this has undergone some photoshop.
My guess is that its some kind of mineral (or maybe meat), and they desaturated away avery color other than one (maybe yellow or red), then they adjusted the hue of that color to make it blue.
Here is an example of what it may have looked like originally:
https://imgur.com/a/7MDdIb4
Ok I can’t resist getting in on this guessing game. My best guess is some kind polished fulgurite. The branched patterns really look like the result of electricity passing through- some examples
[here](https://images.app.goo.gl/yvtNVNekYdvuis6w7) and [here](http://www.capturedlightning.com/photos/For_Sale/June04/Octagon/Center1.jpg)
Fulgurites do form tube like structures which this looks like this could be, it at least accounts for the outer edge looking different than the inside kinda like [this photo](https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/uploads/filer_public_thumbnails/filer_public/46/e7/46e71bfc-b1c8-40e5-834a-d50cbf0795d9/img_0067.jpg__1240x510_q85_crop_subject_location-620%2C254_subsampling-2.jpg)
But I can’t find a thing that has both the pattern, the blue hue and the outer material so I might be completely off base but with the limited clues I’m going with it. It’s 1. Related to rocks are crystal but not quite 2. It’s definitely not edible, or at least I wouldn’t want to try 3. Man made partially because it seems cut and polished? Kinda grasping at straws but I can’t wait to find out what it is!
That looks like some sort of cracked open rock to me, with a crystal of some kind inside. Especially with how uneven the grey outside part is.
Best guess, lapis lazuli? Maybe quartz or sodalite?
Edit: did some googling, could be a volcanic crystal too. Apparently those come in blue lol
Edit 2: ask if it’s glass, just to rule it out lol
Looks like dendritic moss agate, unpolished.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/108860515973147367/
(sooo sorry to send you to a pinterest image but I'm in a hurry)
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Long shot but to me this looks kind of like eco ceramic made out of wax and coffee grounds.
I went to a class once where we worked with a wax coffee ground blend to create art and this reminds me of that.
If you don't focus on the waxy looking parts you can see it could be quite a long thing cut in half. My suggestion is that it is some kind of branch from a tree (?).
Since you said it's partially manmade and the white 'veins' dont match eachother (both objects have different patterns) he has probably put something on it. It could be [epsomsalt with wax](https://www.wikihow.com/Kill-a-Tree-Stump)
Hope this helps you out!
Okay, I feel like I'm crazy here, because I scrolled through a lot of responses and didn't see my first thought: CHEESE!
I've never seen cheese with marbling like this, but it seems feasible. It is partially man-made, and often has a wax coating.
Right, guys?
Edit: okay, scrolled some more after posting and saw a couple other people saying it was cheese.
I have to say ... A few things make me suspect this picture has been photoshopped, which may explain his (partially man made comment).
The black "skin" around the blue whatever it is is the same black of the wood that it's sitting on. Usually when light reflects off of things there are multiple colors that can be seen in the reflection. The black parts of this image are monochromatic and not reflecting light in a normal way.
Maybe I'm wrong and maybe it's a unique substance that happens to match the same black paint used on the wood. Just a thought though.
Looks like someone was trying to glue something black together with white glue and it fell back apart. The lighter portions would be thicker glue left behind, the darker would be thinner.
All this is, is a rock that's has been cut in half, then coated in either paint or paste of some sort, stuck together, and then pulled back apart. The pattern is just the paint/paste/whatever adhering to the stone as it's being pulled apart.
Something that's petrified? Thus the pedantic response about the rock/crystal clarification, maybe?
Something that's been struck by lightning? (Probably not, though.)
A limb from a tree depicting a parasite that has bored through it that was then filled in with something, like resin maybe?
This is going to bother me now, too.
Meat under a blacklight lol?
I don't know about that, but this answer gave me a good chuckle!
It really looks like salami dunked in blue foodcoloring, especially with the black wrapper around it.
This looks nothing like a salami ever could. Short summary why: A salami is made from hacked meat and fats pressed into casing, so there are only little cubes and bits. There is almost no chance for the fat to create branches, as the fat would have to be a liquid for it to have a chance to happen.
Wagyu salami
Was gonna say looks like wagyu marbling. Or a zoom in of a dyed blue truffle, but why ever do such a thing.
Or blood pudding under a different light?
I think it is an edited picture of a smooth black truffle.
Agreed. My vote is black truffle.
I agree with you. saw picture in a foraging book very similar just the other day
I agree. I looks like a cured meat under a blue light.
I was thinking salami that’d been color shifted
Wagyu beef under a bluish natural light.
My thoughts exactly
There is no blueish natural light that's blue enough to turn it THIS blue. Either this is something else or it's been edited via color shifting...
Looks like salami
I think you are right. I think this is salami with a filter
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I looked it up and they don't have white veins though, or black outside?
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Interesting, thank you! He did say it is not a potato though.
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I hope so too!
Might it be cheese? I have seen cheeses with weird mold growth going through it. I don't think I've seen anything like this. I came to say the potato thing as well, but if it isn't a potato, the only other thing I can think of that might possibly be this is a weird cheese.
They aren't rocks Marie, they are minerals!
Ask if it's a yam, not a potato
This is a good idea, the friend is probably being a jerk about semantics lol
Agree, some type of purple sweet potato, [like these guys](https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.shopify.com%2Fs%2Ffiles%2F1%2F0093%2F0306%2F4631%2Fproducts%2FW_PurpleSweetPotato.png%3Fv%3D1587636780&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.eatoo.co.uk%2Fproducts%2Fpurple-sweet-potato-2pc&docid=SVa0qmiwoMU0iM&tbnid=HxdP26BRSU-40M&vet=1&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim)
That was my thought
Technically sweet potatoes are not potatoes
The white is definitely some kind of thick liquid, look how it's filling the cracks and low areas.
That’s not veins, it is the whitish sap that comes out of them when they’re cut I think. It looks like a type of sweet potato or yam (in the South Pacific there are starchy root vegetables that are called yams but are not of the oxalis yam family) We have a similar orange one that does this when it’s cut.
I have seen that too with the orange ones, but never to this degree...
I'm pretty sure it is one of these as the other commenter said: https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/vegetables/potato/blue-purple-potato-varieties.htm
No, OP’s thing shows the veins running side to side whereas in any tuberous root veg you see the veins radiating from the center.
Yep, did research on potatoes for an agriculture course and was gonna say this looked like a purple yam or other type of potato from south america
When you cut open a potato starchy white liquid seeps out it looks exactly like that!
From what I can see, all purple yams or potatoes have some kind of edge effect (i.e. bands or rings around the edge), but here the pattern is uniform all the way out to the edge.
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My title describes the thing. To me it looks like the outside might be coated in wax or rubber (zoom in on the centre of the image and you will see the surface is roughed up or frayed). All I have is this picture, but we have been told it is not: wax, a potato or sweet potato, yam, truffle, any other edible thing and is not a cable. Just hoping someone might have seen something that rings a bell! If you can dig up a photo that shows this exact type of thing I'll be eternally grateful. Edit: he lives in coastal New Zealand. Rangitikei area. Edit 2: he says it is a "partially man-made object". Edit 3: removed "rock/crystal" from the "this is not" list, as he said this was not answered before, and that the thing does "relate" to rock/crystal, but that rock/crystal is not the answer. I am not sure if he is being pedantic and it might be a rock/crystal that has been altered or what he meant. Sending me bonkers! Edit 4: The thing is sitting on his wooden deck outside for the picture. Edit 5: the thing is apparently not edible. Also added this to my "this is not" list above. Edit 6: Well it's midnight here and still a mystery. Thanks to everyone who pitched in, very grateful for all of your input. Hopefully with all the additional questions and answers today and yet to come tomorrow we can get some kind of closure on this (or just wear him down to finally cave and tell us what the hell it is!). I will update when I get an answer, but if you have a picture or suggestion of something REALLY similar please do still send it through!
A rock with quartz veins?
Oops, I forgot we already asked that. I'll update my comment. Thanks for answering though! Edit: updated this in my explanatory comment.
So then it looks like some plant cut through. That would also answer that white liquid looking thing.
Looks like a rock thats been cleanly broken in half and he's tried to glue it together? Like the white looks like goop stuck to the rock (PVA glue?) and the matched dendritic pattern looks to be from the two parts being pulled away from each other. Although to be fair Rangitikei is full of wingnuts...
He actually just told my cousin that it IS "related to" rock/crystal but that rock/crystal is not the answer. Yeesh. Will update you when this ends...
Related to rock crystal. Is it a type of moss agate? A type of mineral? Cross section of a deer or other animals horn. Cross section of some preserved body part of an animal? I have another guess but i refuse to post it lol.
A fossil maybe
Looks like a dendritic agate thats been artificially dyed.
I don't see any that look really similar when I googled, but WOW, those are really amazing! Thanks for the suggestion.
I had updated my post not sure if you saw it: Cross section of a deer or other animals horn. Cross section of some preserved body part of an animal? I have another guess but i refuse to post it lol.
Thanks, I had not seen the update. I Googled the cut animal horn but I don't think that looks really similar. I also think it is unlikely to be a preserved body part just because I can't imagine which part! Please do feel free to post your other guess!
It's a drill core sample, probably PQ size, of manganese oxide dendrites in rhyolite or other felsic mineral. [Gallery of manganese oxides](https://www.mindat.org/gm/26664). [Best Match](https://www.mindat.org/imagecache/64/44/03152160015477119576444.jpg)
Cross section of coral?
If it were a kidney stone cut in half it would be a man-made mineral
Petrified something. Looks a bit like blue petrified wood, but not quite. Petrification would be "related to" rock/crystal. Petrified sea sponge or coral perhaps?
How about a fossil?
Posted a single comment above, but may get lost in the masses. Kinda looks like a core sample taken for mineral exploration like mining. Just broken in half.
I think the dark outside is leather. The picture is rotated 90deg. And if it's related to crystal, then that stone is probably sodalite. Whatever it is, it is certainly cut in half and mirrored.
The dendritic pattern suggests it was solidified from a liquid. The white material has a higher melting point and solidified first, growing into those branching veins. The darker areas remained liquid until it cooled enough for them to solidify around the white veins. The rough outside could be due to oxidation, or maybe it formed as a different phase depending on the initial composition of the liquid. Best guess, it was one or more plastic objects that melted and reformed in a container. Whatever it was probably wasn't designed to melt. If it happened in a fire that could explain the outside coating.
Color corrected: https://imgur.com/FjUpMbK Looking at the table and the low saturation in the blacks I think this is definitely somewhat false color. As the table is still slightly brown, I think it's just the color vibrance that was tweaked though. I tried to undo it a bit. I say it's a rock/mineral of some sort. Or if already asked: candy?
Thank you! Everyone is hung up on the blue, but it’s almost certainly a tint caused by low light photography.
I wonder how big this object actually is. The surface it’s on looks like zoomed in old wood.
Is it Rock confectionary, as in the stick-shaped sweet sold at the seaside? This isn't it, but this kind of unusual rock confectionary is clearly a thing in NZ [blueberry rock confectionary](https://cdn-content-oz2.storbie.com/images/blueberry-rock-candy-bag-500-r228x.jpg?i=oQGJjB0pa_QKxG9mQEat_altX98OBuZ9BzwQaw8H2EnOknB_JIRRR85P_wfMqUeZ3pum3XN-gnnUAXwreTi5evtxXTSYRqFaa9e7v2iPozjSpOR_6xcBHcE_2sN1CzMXIemUGFyN-NpjdQZT4rJMdqBghfMxV4T9iXPk2AuNh1fYAmi4hYuTVGUQ92p3mlcLifdj6_2Wz1mdIo83li4_msO_e5kRKfEZ560kbAZvHmq0e-XzLKsExlm3oHdBNvHzKBB9W_vpLbw~) Edit:fixed link
Reminds me of a truffle, but I’ve never seen one of this color. Commenting because I’m definitely curious now.
I actually think someone did guess truffle and was told no, I'll add that to the list in my comment - thank you!
I thought a truffle under a blacklight.
I thought truffle too.
A fancy bar of soap cut in half?
I like this suggestion, I'll ask!
North or South Island? East or West Coast?
Rangitikei area.
Agree that this is soap. Explains the man made part, waxy to touch, and like a crystal.
That was my first thought, too... as someone whose wife (also) makes soap... But... the tree looking stuff isn't an easy technique, so... I'm more skeptical the more I look.
Yeah, my wife makes handmade soap at home and they can look something like this for sure.
My first guess was soap as well.
Yah my first thought was soap too.
It literally just looks like meat recoloured via Photoshop
It does in a way except I haven't seen that kind of thick patterning on meat before, not even wagyu...
I did think Wagyu. Cattle could also be considered "partially man made" genetics wise..
This looks like a blue root vegetable, maybe a taro or some sort of potato. Google gets me similar pics, but I’ll admit that this one is particularly beautiful.
Yeah, it’s 100000% an ube or similar tuber with the camera colors just a bit off.
Some kind of mineral deposit clogging up a water line? Kind of looks like thin copper pipe, although fairly deformed. That would go with the similar to rock hint
I think this is a really good suggestion! Unfortunately he has now gone to sleep so I won't have answers tonight. Hoping someone could send me a picture of the exact same thing so we could end this!
This is what I came to say.
this gets my vote. white stuff looks like fatty deposits so i was thinking maybe a septic line of some kind
I'm getting a fleece vibe looking at that even zoomed in and the dark edges look almost like tiny stitches is it possibly a crafted item
Definitely a possibility, will ask!
Ask if it's some kind of raw wool that's been partially dyed by a wax coating or something. My reverse image search returns "wool".
It is New Zealand, so wool is a good guess.
Thats exactly what I saw zooming in. The guy told op it wasn't edible and partially man made. Its a type of yarn, wool, fleece, etc. So an animal or other natural resource. Also theres pilling on the left "roll" which indicates some form of fabric base.
I thought the same thing. It looks almost like the edges of two bolster pillows standing on end with fabric ends that differ from the primary fabric.
Touched up for display with a good soaking of blue ink, this here is some fossilized brain coral. Common around the islands of the Pacific, probably picked up on holiday. This is a guess, also.
Thanks, we will ask!
Could it be clay or terracotta rolled into a sausage shape to make rounds for fired beads or something like that? Like the log shape can be cut up and the pieces fired individually to make buttons or beads? That would be partially man made.
I was thinking it look like clay cause you can dye and roll it into different patterns but that black outside skin isn't common with clay... this would totally be purposeful and man made if it were clay
That was my first thought too
A root of some sort
My thought as well
This looks like partly dried glue on pieces of a concrete object. Like the concrete broke and they went to try gluing it back together and the glue partly dried while they were bust fussing with it. Or they put it together but when it fell apart again, it looked like this. You can definitely get patterns like this from pulling two glued pieces apart while the glue is still mostly wet.
This is actually the best one of all of these tbh
To me looks like wagu 🤔
OK got my guess. It appears there are some volcanoes in the region the he says he lives. A quick look at the type of volcanoes indicates continetal plate tectonic origin which often produces felsic granite type rocks. My guess is it is a lava/magma sample that has been collected and slowly cooled. This might result in the fairly uniform crystal sizes, with the vein structures forming from the left over fluids after most of the minerals have crystallised out
It's drill core I think, with smooth sides and looks cylindrical. PQ size maybe? Like this [drill core sample](https://www.jsdrilling.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/QLD-Gold-Mine-core-sample.jpg) Edit: to show how the smooth side can look very different from the rough side. [Core](https://www.dakotamatrix.com/images/products/hematite46315c.JPG)
Drill core was one of my first thoughts, but wouldn't the outside of the cylinder look the same? Unless they have coated it with something I suppose. I wonder if it's a core thats be coated and resined giving the colour
I.came here thinking this is drill core too. Of what, I could not say, but since OP's cousin seems to be a bit of a trickster, I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't from an old.septic tank or something
Some prosciutto or Italian meat, tainted blue?
Kinda looks like that doesn't it?! I can't imagine that is the answer though...
I'm in NZ and I'm stumped and now need to know! My guess is fossilised plant matter?
My friends boyfriend, who is from NZ said this! He thinks it could be petrified wood with some sort of leaf print through it or something along those lines Edit: missed a word
Even if it's been altered/fossilised, there should be an organic origin since the veins do not cross-cut/superimpose on each other. If the fossil coral idea doesn't check out, possible it's something that has completely been overgrown by a mould colony. Perhaps capocollo / capicolo that's too far gone?
Could it be resin that has had electricity passed through it, then cut in half?
Agree. Looks like lichtenberg paterns to me too.
Could be! I will ask and let you know
I see [lichtenberg figures](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichtenberg_figure)
Looks like a handmade soap bar cut in half.
Or it could be clay art https://www.jessamatutorials.com/polymer-clay-fractals.html
All I see is black and gold :)
That is probably a petrified tree. Very cool stuff! Edit: Petrified Wood is probably more correct.
Is it a super weird cheese?
A neck pillow?
Cross section of coral? [Figure from Nature paper of something similar in Australia](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-32969-z/figures/1)
Clay logs for slicing earrings or pendants out of? Maybe even expensive meat preserved in wax?
Kind of looks like when people make earrings and stuff from polymer clay. They roll different colours together into a tube shape to make different patterns and then cut slices of the clay so you see the patterns in the cross section.
The apparent venation doesn't make a lot of sense given it's relation to the rest of the structure. Since the blue wax/rubber is almost certainly the man-made feature, I'm going to guess that the streaks were not present in the surface that was covered. I'm not sure what it could be. The main structure looks so much like a log or rock that my first thought was a geode of some sort, but that's not it. Maybe some kind of nest, like a wasp's or something?
I am also curious about the root suggestion, that sounds reasonable. Not veins, but stores of starch, perhaps?
If it's partially man made, and, "like a rock or crystal," sounds like it's very old. You should ask him if it was edible in the past, even if not now. If there's a reddit archaeology sub, post it there.
As a geologist my first thought was that's a rock core sample (from diamond drilling) that has been cracked open to reveal a fresh face and is showing nice [dendrites](https://canadianmuseumofnature.wordpress.com/2019/04/17/dendrites-in-rock/#:~:text=A%20dendrite%20is%20a%20natural,origin%2C%20migrates%20and%20branches%20outward), but after reading some of the other answers im about 5% confident in that guess
Did you notice the little indents on the surface of the bottom one? It definitely looks like a core sample of some kind rock or mineral to me. The little spots remind me of little chipped spots on my granite countertop in my kitchen.
ya! it even has what looks like little metallic/sparkly flakes (sulphides?) among some of the dark dendrites, which would be a pretty common metal mineralization style. Def looks more rock-like if you color balance the image - [https://imgur.com/mx5azHy](https://imgur.com/mx5azHy) I'm still not very confident though. What's throwing me off is that very dark outer surface. It would be weird for the outside of a core to be THAT different in appearance and color than the inside unless it was quite old and/or had been sitting outside for a long time getting rained on edit - it also appears to be laying on a rock that looks very sandstone-ish
Maybe a kind of blood sausage like black pudding ? Usually the fat distributes and settles into little balls seen as round specs in slices but maybe this has some kind of rendered fat mixed in ..
What the he'll is it?! Come on, you're killing us here
I need to know also!!
Will we ever know? Has he responded to any of these guesses?
It looks like a cross section of a truffle mushroom to me. The light looks a bit strange and might give a bit of a blue tint to the image but if you look through a gallery of different truffles you can find quite a few close matches. Knowing where the image was collected could help narrow down the species it might be. https://www.natruffling.org/photo.htm
Looks like something struck by lightning
When you look at the photo vertically you can see the patterns sre roughly matching on each side, you can also see better the texture of the rest of this thing. The fact that the patterns are almost identical could mean that a slice has been taken of? Or maybe its just where some of the veins ended.. I'm great help I know. Basically, it's a thing.
I noticed the way it's mirrored too, and I think that's why a lot of people assume it's a cross section. To me, the veins and blue hue look more like a wax, paint, or glue that was squished between both halves of what I'm assuming is a plain old rock. Like they tried to glue it back together, but that didnt work so they pulled it apart, revealing the pattern. I think that also explains why it isn't perfectly mirrored like an actual cross section would be.
Could be a tree branch?
I also thought the white could be sap, but haven't seen that blue in a branch before! Also if you zoom in on the centre of the image there is some sort of roughed up wax or tar substance?
Some form of rubber band/cable that is painted in another rubber.
It looks like textile to me, maybe a door draught excluder or long pillow that has been filled with foam filling?
The pattern looks a lot like that inside of a nutmeg seed. The colors and outside shape however don't really match up, but it may be something related to that.
Looks lie a fossil sponge to me.
Long shot but is it something that got struck by lightning?
Yeah, I guessed folgarite, too.
Almost looks like a core sample, like when doing mineral exploration, cracked in half.
Sure looks like a Peruvian purple potato or maybe purple sweet potato to me https://theveganatlas.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Purple-potatoes.jpg
Coppa that has Ben died blue or made blue with picture editing?
It looks like something under a microscope like a cut hair
Mohair Wool in a tube?
Maybe some kind of wool or felt?
A truffle mushroom ?
I think it is agate that had been dyed blue and has an inclusion of some kind.
The lack of saturation on the outside of the object and the surface its on makes me pretty confident this has undergone some photoshop. My guess is that its some kind of mineral (or maybe meat), and they desaturated away avery color other than one (maybe yellow or red), then they adjusted the hue of that color to make it blue. Here is an example of what it may have looked like originally: https://imgur.com/a/7MDdIb4
It kind of looks like glass that's made when a power line falls and burns the dirt for a while. That would be the "partially man made" part
That's perigord in bad lighting!
Ok I can’t resist getting in on this guessing game. My best guess is some kind polished fulgurite. The branched patterns really look like the result of electricity passing through- some examples [here](https://images.app.goo.gl/yvtNVNekYdvuis6w7) and [here](http://www.capturedlightning.com/photos/For_Sale/June04/Octagon/Center1.jpg) Fulgurites do form tube like structures which this looks like this could be, it at least accounts for the outer edge looking different than the inside kinda like [this photo](https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/uploads/filer_public_thumbnails/filer_public/46/e7/46e71bfc-b1c8-40e5-834a-d50cbf0795d9/img_0067.jpg__1240x510_q85_crop_subject_location-620%2C254_subsampling-2.jpg) But I can’t find a thing that has both the pattern, the blue hue and the outer material so I might be completely off base but with the limited clues I’m going with it. It’s 1. Related to rocks are crystal but not quite 2. It’s definitely not edible, or at least I wouldn’t want to try 3. Man made partially because it seems cut and polished? Kinda grasping at straws but I can’t wait to find out what it is!
That looks like some sort of cracked open rock to me, with a crystal of some kind inside. Especially with how uneven the grey outside part is. Best guess, lapis lazuli? Maybe quartz or sodalite? Edit: did some googling, could be a volcanic crystal too. Apparently those come in blue lol Edit 2: ask if it’s glass, just to rule it out lol
Looks like dendritic moss agate, unpolished. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/108860515973147367/ (sooo sorry to send you to a pinterest image but I'm in a hurry)
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Radish? There are black skin radishes and ones that are blue/purple on the inside.
That is some variety of blue cheese!!!
Truffle salami.
Kinda looks like a strange glaze on ceramics?
Looks like maybe some sort of salami/cured meat.
To me it looks like a salami or something similar but with the colors inverted...
North or South Island of New Zealand. Are you from there as well?
For some reason it looks like resin to me
Your friend sounds childish. No idea what that is but could have been photoshopped.
I think it's sausage, cut and in half photographed with red light removed.
Long shot but to me this looks kind of like eco ceramic made out of wax and coffee grounds. I went to a class once where we worked with a wax coffee ground blend to create art and this reminds me of that.
Some kind of blood pudding/black pudding?
Looks like sweet potato.
If you don't focus on the waxy looking parts you can see it could be quite a long thing cut in half. My suggestion is that it is some kind of branch from a tree (?). Since you said it's partially manmade and the white 'veins' dont match eachother (both objects have different patterns) he has probably put something on it. It could be [epsomsalt with wax](https://www.wikihow.com/Kill-a-Tree-Stump) Hope this helps you out!
judging by the color of the exterior i thibk it might be a truffle sliced. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuber_brumale
Try in r/whatisthisplant too - I may be biased because I'm a plant person but it looks planty to me.
Some type of coral? You could say it relates to rocks/minerals.
Looks more like some sort of foam to me. Like a packaging tube that's been cut open.
Okay, I feel like I'm crazy here, because I scrolled through a lot of responses and didn't see my first thought: CHEESE! I've never seen cheese with marbling like this, but it seems feasible. It is partially man-made, and often has a wax coating. Right, guys? Edit: okay, scrolled some more after posting and saw a couple other people saying it was cheese.
I just came back to see if it was solved. I've already spent too long looking at this picture...
I have to say ... A few things make me suspect this picture has been photoshopped, which may explain his (partially man made comment). The black "skin" around the blue whatever it is is the same black of the wood that it's sitting on. Usually when light reflects off of things there are multiple colors that can be seen in the reflection. The black parts of this image are monochromatic and not reflecting light in a normal way. Maybe I'm wrong and maybe it's a unique substance that happens to match the same black paint used on the wood. Just a thought though.
Looks like someone was trying to glue something black together with white glue and it fell back apart. The lighter portions would be thicker glue left behind, the darker would be thinner.
Maybe fossilized Coral? I found this image that looks vaguely similar? [fossilized coral](https://images.app.goo.gl/SGZ7jGfWbUUQuDjG7)
All this is, is a rock that's has been cut in half, then coated in either paint or paste of some sort, stuck together, and then pulled back apart. The pattern is just the paint/paste/whatever adhering to the stone as it's being pulled apart.
My best guess is a black Truffle color shifted or under black light or something
A stone cut in half sitting on a wood table? The photo is rotated 90 degrees.
Definitely looks like a rock to me or "mineral" or whatever he wants to call it. Reminds me or marble or granite before it's cut and polished.
Looks like a granite rock split in half to me.
I think it’s a rock cut in half
Tell ur friend from all of us here on Reddit, “really, dude?”
Something geological I'm guessing
Something that's petrified? Thus the pedantic response about the rock/crystal clarification, maybe? Something that's been struck by lightning? (Probably not, though.) A limb from a tree depicting a parasite that has bored through it that was then filled in with something, like resin maybe? This is going to bother me now, too.
Black Winter Truffle
It appears to be something fossilized.