Woman discovers horrifying creature washed up on beach, Twitter helps ID it
BY ISOBEL HAMILTON From Mashable
Everyone loves a stroll on the beach, why else would people mention it so much in dating profiles? Walking hand-in-hand with a loved one, the sea air ruffling your hair, the gentle lapping of the waves — what could be nicer? Oh, and don’t forget the desiccated sea-monster lying on the sand.
Photographer Preeti Desai got at least one of these things when she was walking on a beach in Texas. Guess which one…
Let’s take a closer look at the lil’ buddy.
What a loveable toothy maw! Desai reached out to aquatic experts on Twitter to help her identify the cutie-pie. The experts contributed rationally enough…
Andrew Thaler
✔@DrAndrewThaler
Hard to tell given position and decomposition, but teeth and body shape makes me think some kind of eel.
✔@SolomonRDavid
I’d agree, could be some sort of eel; but not a moray, given it appears to have had pectoral fins. OR aquatic xenomorph…
It isn’t really an aquatic xenomorph though… right?
No, don’t be silly [laughs nervously].
Although there was a little debate, the consensus seems to be that the creature is a kind of snake-eel, quite possibly a fangtooth snake-eel to be precise, sometimes known as the tusky eel. This is NOT to be confused with the fangtooth moray eel, who looks like this:
Eel or no, the denizen of the deep has garnered quite a lot of media attention.
My dead (possible) fangtooth snake-eel needs an agent.
For more on this story go to: https://twitter.com/preetalina/status/908048991534895104?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fmashable.com%2F2017%2F09%2F14%2Fstrange-sea-creature-on-texas-beach-identified%2F
