A so-called “gruesome” sea creature with rows of sharp teeth gave a runner an enormous scare when his foot became lodged in the creature’s mouth.
Andy Rees was running along the beach at Three Cliffs Bay when he thought he spied a dead seal on the beach.
Spoiler- It was not a seal
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Rees told the Mirror: “I decided to turn it over with my foot to be sure what it was, not realising I’d put my foot in its huge mouth.
“As I flipped it over my foot got stuck in the teeth inside the mouth, which gave me a bit of a shock.
“Its mouth was huge, with very sharp teeth. It was a gruesome, frightening-looking fish.
Rees says he could feel how sharp the teeth were when his foot became stuck in the animal's mouth.
What the runner first thought was a seal was actually an anglerfish which are usually found at ocean depths between 550m and 2000m.
He continued: “I have seen it in photographs but never in the sea or on a beach.
“I always thought anglerfish only live in the deep ocean, so I was surprised to see it in our local shallow waters.
“The most curious thing was a large spine about 30cm long on top of its head, with a fleshy bit at the end.”
Anyone who has watched Nemo will know that this fish is not to be messed with- evidently even if it has washed up on the beach.
“That’s what made me think it might be an anglerfish – as they use the fleshy bit as a lure to attract the fish they prey on,” he said.
Rees added: “It was a very ugly-looking fish.”
Most shockingly, a fish of the same species washed up in California recently.
“At first I thought it was a — like a jellyfish or something, and then I went and looked at it a little more carefully, and some other people were gathered around it too, and then I saw that it was this very unusual fish,” Jay Beiler, who encountered the fish, told KNSD.
He added: “I go to the beach fairly often, so I’m familiar with the territory, but I’ve never seen an organism that looked quite as fearsome as this.”
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