Hurricane Harvey didn’t just displace people, it displaced sea creatures too.
Last week, Preeti Desai of the National Audobon Society took to Twitter for help identifying a mysterious creature she found washed onto a Texas City beach after Hurricane Harvey.
The apparently eyeless dead animal sported a mouth of razor-sharp teeth and a large cylinder-shaped body.
Preeti Desai of the National Audobon Society found a mysterious dead sea creature on a Texas City beach after Hurricane Harvey
‘My initial thought was it might be a sea lamprey but when I got close I realized there was no way that was what it was, particularly based on the mouth,’ Desai said
‘On first glance it looked like something from the deep sea to me,’ Desai said. ‘My initial thought was it might be a sea lamprey but when I got close I realized there was no way that was what it was, particularly based on the mouth.
‘We squished it around a bit, and even turned it over but couldn’t come up with any other ideas.’
So Desai posted the pictures on Twitter and asked biologists for help.
‘This is the kind of thing that’s perfect for Twitter – there are so many scientists and researchers on the platform and they’re very willing to jump in and figure out things like this,’ she said.
Desai posted pictures of the creature on Twitter, asking for help identifying it
Biologists agreed it was likely a type of eel – specifically a fangtooth snake-eel but couldnt peg down exactly what it was
The biologists who responded to Desai’s post believed that the sea monster was some type of eel, but they had a hard time pegging just what kind.
‘I mentally smacked my forehead, because once that was suggested I could absolutely see the eel shape,’ Desai said.
The most popular opinion was that the animal was a fangtooth snake-eel, also known as the tusky eel, which is native to the Gulf of Mexico.
