This ‘fish’ may look like a sci-fi monster, but it’s actually 100% real, and it’s baffled even marine experts.
The freaky specimen was caught in Canadian waters off Newfoundland by fisherman Scott Tanner. The crew on board his boat all agreed they’d never seen anything like it.
“It stood out right away with the green eyes,” said Tanner. “Everybody was pretty amazed by it. The older guys, even, said they’d never seen one before.”
“What the h*@# is this?” blared a headline on the Daily Star, a U.K. tabloid that described the catch as a “winged fish with evil eyes” and “a nose like a wizard’s hat.”
According to the star.com, Andrew Hebda, curator of zoology at the Museum of Natural History in Halifax, offered a more scientific-based explanation: the bug-eyed creature appears to be a knifenose chimera — one of three chimera species in North Atlantic waters.
Chimeras are edible, Hebda noted, though he’d prefer to have one in the museum’s collection instead of on his dinner plate.
Tanner agreed.
“I definitely wouldn’t think about eating it.”
