A video has emerged that shows something truly bizarre caught by some people fishing. Honestly, have a look at this thing – but beware – it looks fairly horrific:
In the short video, you’ll notice that this creature is only tiny, but you might not particularly fancy holding it as the person in the video does.
It’s got a gelatinous looking transparent body, which holds up a frankly terrifying head with a couple of legs, or arms, or whatever they actually are.
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Seriously, it’s quite hard to tell.
It also appears to have eyes and a mouth, although without being a marine biologist – or perhaps an expert in extra-terrestrial creatures with a high-security clearance – it’s pretty tough to say.
Anyway, the video was taken a while back, but resurfaced again after being shared on Twitter.
The short clip bears the caption: “Tell me this is not an alien.”
In truth, there’s probably weirder stuff in the sea than anywhere on earth.
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The further down you go, and the smaller things you inspect, the weirder they become.
When you think about it, everything is pretty odd down there, isn’t it?
Since the video was shared again yesterday, it has been viewed more than 22.6 million times, with thousands of people piping up to give their opinion on the strange sea beast.
One described it as ‘forbidden jello’, whilst another said simply: “Put it back.”
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Sound advice.
Another comment suggested that it could be a ‘baby alien’.
Well, it does look a bit like something from Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi horror classic.
Yet another said: “It’s that thing Agent Smith put in Neo’s belly button.”
Remember that scene in The Matrix?
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You have to admit that it is vaguely reminiscent of whatever that was.
In truth, it’s more likely to be something called a Phronima, which is a deep-sea creature that can be found in all of the oceans of the sea, with the exception of those around the poles.
It is a parasitic creature, though more correctly a parasitoid.
Whilst harmless to humans, they’re not so harmless if you’re reading this and happen to be a small planktic tunicate known as a sea salp or sea grape.
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Not sure whether we have much of an audience amongst the sea salp community, but you never know.
The female Phronima attacks those salps and uses their mouth and claws to eat the insides of the animal and hollow them out, wearing the remains as a bit of a jacket.
Told you they were nice.
They then lay eggs inside the hollowed-out shell and propel it through the water, providing fresh water and food to their larvae.
Anyway, aren’t you glad you learned about this gruesome creature of the deep this morning?
Tom Wood