Found beached in Virginia, US, is a three-foot sea creature with buck teeth that resembles a legless crocodile. The man who discovered it has made it a habit to spot these creatures.
A hulking armoured sea creature has been discovered washed up on a deserted beach. Driving across the US island of Assateague, Virginia, Allen Sklar noticed a beast on the sand that appeared to be still and pulled over to investigate.
It soon became apparent that this was no ordinary fish out of water but a bizarre-looking armoured beast that dates back to the time of the dinosaurs. Measuring around three feet long, the animal boasted quite the overbite with its top gnashers on show beneath a stretched out pointed nose, Newsweek reports.
Fortunately for Allen, he had seen similar strange creatures before and was able to calmly snap a picture of what he recognized to be an Atlantic sturgeon. Allen said he found the fish on the beach at Assateague Island, a 37-mile-long strip of land, and he quickly snapped a few pictures of the creature.
“I drive the 12 miles of beach about 100 days a year and so see a lot of stuff others don’t,” Allen told Newsweek. In my 27 years of motoring on the island, I have only seen two sturgeons, including this one.
He captioned a photo of the fish on Facebook: “This 37-inch fish is a true member of the dinosaurs.
“It has no scales only rows of hard plates called scutes. A bottom feeder, it will eat almost anything including clams, mussels, and dead fish.
“Under its chin are four whiskers called barbels which are used to sense the bottom for food. The mouth is hard and bony with no teeth.
This one is tiny; scientists have discovered specimens weighing as much as 160 pounds in Chesapeake Bay rivers and tributaries, and they can reach weights of over a thousand pounds in other regions of the globe.
“Overfished to the point of almost being extinct they were put on the Endangered Species list in 2012.”
The Atlantic sturgeon is a prehistoric fish that can be found in rivers and coastal waters, and can grow up to 14ft in length.
