From a newly identified glowing shark to a living sea dragon found in Mexico, here are
ten of the craziest sea creatures ever found!
10: Glowing Shark A new species of insane sea creature was just
found deep beneath the surface of the ocean off the coast of New Zealand.
The new species is called the kitefin shark, and believe it or not, it literally glows
in the dark.
It's one of three species of glowing sharks that scientists currently know about prowling
through the oceans.
The shark can grow to an amazing length of about 6 feet.
This obviously isn't as big as a tiger shark or a great white, but it’s still bigger
than me and neither of those sharks can glow fluorescent blue!!
According to the Smithsonian, the fish was hauled up during a survey in one of the deepest
parts of New Zealand's east coast.
The shark resides in the twilight zone of the ocean, between 660 and 3300 feet deep.
But why is the shark luminescent?
As you may already know, bioluminescence is a pretty common feature among fish in the
deep dark ocean, as well as squids and other creatures.
Most cases of bioluminescence involve a special chemical compound which glows when interacting
with oxygen.
However, the shark produces its blue light in a slightly different way.
Researchers just aren't exactly sure how or even why, but they speculate the blue glowing
light from the shark’s belly makes it invisible to prey swimming beneath in the darkness of
the deep sea.
It also uses its glowing belly to illuminate prey beneath it for easy hunting.
Weirdly, the shark’s fin even glows in the dark.
Scientists can’t figure out why that happens either!
9: Icelandic River Monster The video of a strange river monster recently
surfaced, showing a long, snake-like creature slithering through a glacial river in the
country of Iceland.
According to locals, the video is proof of a horrifying legendary sea monster called
Lagarfljót or Lagarfljótsormur said to be a serpentine creature that lurks around lakes
and rivers sometimes in the water, sometimes coiled up on shore.
However, not everyone is convinced.
Some people have suggested the creature in the video is nothing but a hoax, while others
speculate it could just be some kind of ordinary river animal.
In the footage, the thing seems to be slithering upstream.
It also appears to be over 10 feet in length and huge.
This is just one of many reports of the monster.
The first sighting of the mysterious Icelandic beast was back in 1345.
It was documented in the 15th century, and it was even drawn on world maps from the 16th
century.
There were additional sightings in the 1700s and many in the 1900’s.
The most recent was 2012.
Local legend says the beast is actually a type of worm or slug that has been growing
bigger and bigger as the centuries go by.
Some reports place it as being longer than a bus, with many humps on its back.
Some say it only lives in freshwater lakes, and others claim to have spotted it in the
coastal waters of Iceland.
You never know where the giant worm will show up!
Nobody knows if the monster in the video was the deadly slug from legend, since it vanished
and was never seen again.
8: Mysterious Regenerating Slug A mysterious regenerating slug monster has
just been found and has scientists pretty excited!
According to Scientific American, it was researchers in Japan who made the shocking discovery.
They actually found two separate species of sea slug both with the ability to chop their
heads off and then regrow their bodies from the neck down.
It would be like if you could remove your head and then grow a brand-new body while
throwing the old one in the trash.
Even more amazing is that the regeneration only takes about two weeks to complete.
You're probably thinking, sure, but there are lots of animals that practice regeneration
in the world.
What makes the slug so special?
Most animals that can regrow pieces of themselves are restricted to regrowing things like legs
or tails.
These slugs take it to the next level by regrowing their whole body!!
It's a feat unsurpassed by any other living animal.
According to researcher Sayaka Mitoh, these ocean slugs represent the most extreme form
of regeneration anywhere in nature.
And here's where things get really crazy.
The Japanese scientists noticed that the slugs sometimes decapitate themselves on purpose.
The severed head can then survive for several weeks by using a special type of photosynthesis
to give itself nourishment.
The decapitated body also goes on living for several days and up to a few months.
Scientists are still trying to figure out how exactly the regeneration happens and why
the slugs chop off their own heads instead of sacrificing a smaller part.
Seems a bit overkill don’t you think??
7: Heatwave Jellyfish During the insane heat wave of 2021, some
pretty creepy sea creatures have been getting washed up on beaches in the United Kingdom.
Locals were shocked to discover dead jellyfish up to six feet in length stranded on their
sandy shores.
But locals weren't nearly as disturbed as the scientists who couldn't believe how barrel
jellyfish, animals that inhabit warm coastal waters from very far away, ended up in the
U.K. in the middle of June.
The jellyfish are so out of place here that people were mistaking them for octopuses or
even aliens!
These are some of the biggest jellyfish to ever wash-up in Britain.
Each jellyfish can weigh up to 77 pounds which is heavier than most people's dogs.
They aren't considered harmful to humans, though they can sting, which causes mild irritation
but not death or paralysis like other jellyfish.
They typically eat plankton, which is probably why they ended up washing ashore.
Plankton in shallow waters are easy pickings, and the jellyfish sometimes don't realize
how big they are and they end up beached.
But why were so many washing up during the heatwave?
Could they have been getting cooked right out of the ocean?
The truth is the scientists don't quite know but it is a major sign that things in the
ocean are shifting.
All they said to the public was to keep an eye open for the jellyfish when visiting the
beach and not to touch them, as they can still sting and cause irritation when they're dead.
6: The Deadliest Washed-Up Creatures Hundreds of very deadly sea creatures recently
washed-up on Muizenberg Beach in Cape Town, South Africa.
These fish are deadlier than cyanide and can kill.
They were first discovered by Dr. Tess Gridley from the U.K. while walking with her family
along the beach.
She saw hundreds of them scattered across the sand, dead but still dangerous, filled
with a horrible neurotoxin that can paralyze and cause respiratory failure if ingested.
Locals were actually advised to stay away from the beach because of the deadly creatures,
which often cause death by cardiac arrest.
This was an especially dangerous situation for dogs and other pets who might have accidentally
tried to munch on one of the animals.
The creatures were identified by South Africa’s Department of Environment as evil-eye pufferfish.
These are the famous deadly pufferfish that you can eat in Japan – but only if prepared
by a chef who knows what they're doing.
If you eat a pufferfish that's been prepared improperly, you could accidentally eat the
neurotoxin and die within minutes.
There were about 800 dead pufferfish per mile of shore.
In other words, there was a massive die-off of pufferfish.
Hordes and hordes of them washed ashore and scientists were clueless as to why.
They don't know what happened, if there was some kind of terrifying underwater event that
killed them all, or if they simply ended up on the beach thanks to a freak wave.
5: Faceless Beast A mysterious sea creature estimated to be
over 23 feet long was found rotting on a beach in the country of Wales.
The sea monster had no recognizable face, it weighed probably around 4 tons, and nobody
has been able to identify it.
Pictures of the strange creature were put online by a local organization known as Marine
Environmental Monitoring.
They received a call from a worried local who first discovered what they described as
a large blob on the beach.
At first, experts thought they were dealing with a whale.
But once they arrived on the scene, they didn't know what it was.
One of them suggested it could be a basking shark, but there was no way to prove it.
The creature had already decomposed so much that it was basically a huge pile of sloppy
smelly mush, weird bones, and what looked like giant teeth.
4: Wandering Meatloaf There is something very bizarre living in
the ocean that scientists call a wandering meatloaf.
This is because it looks like a large meatloaf slowly wandering across the ocean floor.
It's actually a type of mollusk that belongs to the same family as snails and clams.
It's a weird beast with a hard shell and, according to new research, teeth that contain
an extremely rare form of iron.
Scientists from Northwestern University found the mineral santabarbaraite within the teeth
of the wandering meatloaf.
The leader of the study, Derk Joster, told USA Today that it was a complete accident
they made the discovery at all.
Here’s what it entails: The teeth of the mollusk, known scientifically
as a chiton, are about three times harder than the teeth in our mouths.
This is pretty shocking considering human teeth are some of the hardest things in nature.
Yet the teeth of the wandering meatloaf are even stronger.
Each tooth is attached to a flexible radula, kind of like a tongue, which scrapes over
dirt and rocks and other hard surfaces to collect algae.
During this process, the mineral santabarbaraite somehow becomes part of the animal’s teeth.
Because the mineral is strong and low in density, it toughens and strengthens the teeth to such
a point that the wandering meatloaf can physically bite through rocks.
This is the only biological animal in which scientists have ever found this rare mineral.
Previously, it's only been found in miniscule amounts in geological specimens, meaning rocks.
Chitons are now considered to be the animal with the strongest teeth in the world, even
though it’s only a small marine creature.
It uses its teeth to keep feeding on algae, busting up rocks like a beaver chews through
trees.
3: Dog Killing Sea Monster A weird sea creature described as an alien
monster was recently found stuck in the sand on an Australian beach.
Apparently, the creature is a killer of dogs.
This all went down at Leighton Beach near the small Australian city of Fremantle.
The person who found it uploaded photos on the Internet and asked for help in identifying
it.
This thing looked like something from another planet, so the beach goer was curious to know
if he had found a new sea animal or a new species of extraterrestrial, maybe some kind
of weird yellow goo monster.
After uploading the picture, it became clear he was dealing with a real animal.
People were quick to point out that the creature was a nefarious killer of dogs.
It's called a sea hare, and it kind of looks like a pile of vomit but is actually a gastropod
mollusk.
It has a special type of purple ink which it can squirt into a dog’s mouth to kill
it!
Whenever the sea hare becomes scared, it squirts the liquid as a defense mechanism and even
if it’s dead if you are walking your dog and it goes to inspect or grab it, it could
cause serious damage.
According to Culum Brown from the Department of Biological Science, this goo is considered
toxic because of a type of algae the animal eats.
Thankfully, the dangerous sea hare quickly washed back into the ocean and was gone before
any dogs could be harmed.
2: Carnivorous Sponges Scientists have just discovered three very
strange carnivorous creatures living in the deep ocean.
At first, these monstrosities probably aren't going to scare you.
They are known as sea sponges, and they aren't that intimidating.
However, they could be scarier than you expected.
Sea sponges are multicellular filter feeders, meaning their skin is able to filter flowing
water and to extract oxygen and food from it.
At least, most sea sponges operate like that.
They're very simple creatures without nerves or digestion or even a circulatory system.
They've also been around for the past 500 million years.
Carnivorous sea sponges are a bit different.
The new ones found by scientists have lost their ability to filter flowing water.
Instead, they now feast on tiny crustaceans by using their long, flimsy, tentacle-like
limbs.
These limbs have tiny hooks on the ends that they use to skewer unsuspecting prey.
There's one reason why these creatures are so terrifying, it’s all about evolution.
The shift from filter feeding to being a voracious carnivore with tentacles and hooks is shocking.
It's so shocking that scientists aren't even sure how it happened.
The creatures were found living at a depth of around 9000 feet, meaning they aren't that
easy to study.
But if they evolved from being peaceful plant-eaters to hungry savages, there’s no telling what
they might turn into next… after another 500 million years.
1: Living Dragon A couple of fishermen discovered a rare living
dragon belched out of the ocean.
It happened in Mexico while Noah and Jacob Thompson were on their way to do a bit of
fly fishing.
Before they reached the fishing spot, they came across the unbelievable.
There was a shimmering sea dragon stranded in the sand just beyond the lapping tide.
It was majestic to say the least.
The dragon serpent was around 9 feet long and just a baby.
Of course, it wasn't a legendary dragon.
It was actually an oarfish, something often described as a dragon of the sea.
Not much is known about the mysterious oarfish, other than that they live over 3000 feet deep
in the ocean and grow to be between 50 and 60 feet long.
They almost never wash-up on the shore.
This was a weird case because the oarfish was still alive.
Realizing this, the brothers acted quickly to save its life.
They picked the oarfish up gently and put it back into the water, then watched as it
slithered back towards the open ocean.
Hopefully it wasn’t too traumatized and made it back to the deep ok but usually if
it's washed up on shore it’s not a great sign.
But hopefully saving the life of an oarfish is like saving a leprechaun, you’re bound
to have good luck in the future!
Thanks for watching!!
What’s your favorite sea monster?
Let me know in the comments.
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