A pale, ghoulish sea creature with sharp teeth that washed ashore has mystified onlookers and the Internet.
The long, slender animal turned up dead at near Laguna Niguel in California with its mouth open and tangled in some seaweed on Saturday.
An image of it posted on Reddit drew wide speculation on what the creature might be. Some users thought it resembled a plesiosaur, which is of the same species as the mythical long-necked Loch Ness monster.
‘My first thought when i saw that head was “woah, why does it look like a plesiosaur,”‘ wrote a Reddit user.
‘Obviously the body is a giveaway that its just an eel but i think i understand a little better now lmao.’
The Reddit user who posted it commented, ‘It’s giving me nightmares.’
But the creature was identified as possibly being a moray eel, which is common in Southern California.
‘Looks a little bleached out from being dead,’ California Department of Fish and Wildlife spokesperson Tim Daly told SFGATE.
Moray eels are typically yellowish or brown with spots.
They may not be as captivating as the plesiosaur, but ancient Romans are believed to have placed high value on them, harvesting them to eat and even dressed them up like gorgeous women.
Reddit users have exalted the bleached breached creature in a different way – by bringing up Dean Martin’s song, ‘That’s Amore.’
‘When the jaws open wide, and there’s more jaws inside, that’s a moray,’ remarked one user.
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Another user wrote: ‘If the moon hits it’s eyes like a big pizza pie that’s a moray.’
It is far from the only weird creature that has washed up in the US recently.
In June, a rare 7.3-foot-long round and flat-bodied hoodwinker sunfish appeared on Gearhart Beach on Oregon’s northern coast. Like the moray eel, the ‘sunbathing’ fish created a stir on social media and people flocked to the beach to look at the carcass. It was determined not to be a common ocean sunfish, and a rare occurrence since they usually spend their time only in warm waters.
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