'Spooky' sea creature washes up on Aussie beach as wild weather rolls in
With its eye socket rotted out, and spines protruding from its spine, the decaying creature has been a challenge to identify.
Remains of a mysterious fish that washed up on an Aussie beach have baffled internet sleuths who have debated over what species it is.
A dramatic image shared with Yahoo News Australia shows the decaying carcass on the sand as heavy clouds rolled in on Sunday night. “I’d never seen anything like it before,” Gem, a North Geelong environmentalist, told Yahoo.
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Gem had been walking along St Helens Beach, a quiet stretch of sand at Corio Bay in the Geelong area, when her dogs began sniffing the rotting creature.
“It looked really gross and I didn’t want them to eat it. So I dragged them away, and thought it’s very ugly and quite spooky looking,” Gem said.
As a regular swimmer at the beach during the summer, Gem was surprised to discover such a large fish washed up. She estimates it was easily as long as her arm.
“It looked like it was covered in spikes. And its eye socket had completely rotted out,” she said.
Online sleuths weigh in on fish's identity
Once a fish decays on the shore it can be difficult to determine what species it is. In June, pictures shared by Yahoo showing mysterious remains at Vancouver Island initially stumped experts, and it was only after publication they were identified as the tail of a skate — a stingray-like species.
After seeing pictures of the St Helens Beach fish, online ocean enthusiasts were intrigued by the creature’s size. “Is it big or just the camera angle?” one person asked.
A handful of different species suggestions flooded the comments, with everything from giant sunfish, to globefish and pufferfish suggested.
Decaying fish carcass a challenge for experts to identify
Gem shared a short video of the St Helens Beach fish with Yahoo which shows the carcass up close. After viewing the clip, Lawrence Chlebeck, a marine biologist at Humane Society International, said large spines along the backbone indicated it was a large teleost or bony fish — a family of around 26,000 species. He thought a grouper or tuna were both possibilities.
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Several other fisheries scientists also examined the footage, but due to its decayed state, they were unable to pinpoint the exact species, however they thought it may have been a tuna, a very large globefish, or puffer fish.
Dr Sheridan Rabbitt from the Centre for Marine Science at the University of Queensland also said he believed it was a type of puffer fish, probably a porcupinefish.
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