amazed at the discovery of one fish-like creature with heavy jaw.
A woman was walking along a beach in Cape Town, South Africa, when she came across an odd sea creature that had a serious set of fangs.
Leandra Vissr of Worcester used a mussel shell to pick up the freaky fish from the seashore, snapped a photo, and posted it on Facebook with a question:
“Can someone please tell me what the hell this is? We picked it up on the beach at De Kelder. It’s the real thing!!”
Though, some people doubted the reality of the creature, including the chief scientist at the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity Alan Whitfield,, He doubted whether it was a fish at all because it didn’t have fins, a tail, or
scales."The head and jaws seem out of proportion with the body,” he told The
Citizen. “In fact there is a question mark whether the creature may have
been created from part of different animals.”
He added that just because it was picked up on a beach doesn’t mean it is a fish.However, Charles Griffiths, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Cape Town, offered a more plausible identification, telling The Citizen he believes it to be a rocksucker, or Chorisochismus dentex, that has dried up.
May be we could agree to that. Any way,
According to Fish Base, a rocksucker is a harmless fish that feeds on sea urchins , mussels, and limpets and is found in the Southeast Atlantic, including parts of South Africa. The photo shown below is of a rocksucker found at Blousteen Ridge, a rocky reef near Cape Town.
Griffiths explained that rocksuckers use their teeth to crack limpets and mussels.
Whitfield wasn’t totally convinced, since it had no fins, adding that it will be impossible to know for certain without doing tests on the bizarre sea creature.
And that will be impossible, since Vissr didn’t keep the freaky fish.
No comments:
Post a Comment