A fisherman from Victoria, Australia pulled from the depths of the ocean one of the most note-worthy creatures ever to swim the Earth's waters. The extremely rare frilled shark is known as a living fossil and looks like an absolute prehistoric nightmare. Its body resembles that of an eel but it has the tail of a shark. In its mouth are 25 to 47 rows of 300 razor sharp teeth. Say it with me now, nope. Nope. Nope!
The shark is almost never seen by humans and, for David Guillot, the skipper who caught one in his trawler, it was a sight that scared everyone on the boat, thinking they must have entered some sort of horror movie. The shark gets its name from six pairs of gill slits along its neck and is able to capture prey more than half its size.
"I've been at sea for 30 years and I've never seen a shark look like that," Guillot said of his catch last month.
The Frilled Shark isn't the only sea monster that dwells in the deep waters of the ocean. Others have also pulled out equally bizzare and horrific creatures that make us all happy we live on dry land, away from these minions of Cthulhu.
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As we've shown you in the past, when it's just swimming and minding its own business, the Goblin Shark looks almost comical, but when it's ready to attack, watch out! It's teeth-filled jaws jut out to take a bite out of anything in its way.
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The curious-looking Blobfish swims in the deepest depths of the ocean. Its gelatinous, flabby appearance earned it the title of the World's Ugliest Animal in 2013.
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Never mind all those spikes growing out of her spine or that light dangling in front of her fangy mouth to lure prey into her waiting jaws of death. The absolute, most deranged thing about the Angler Fish is that almost all images you've ever seen of the nightmarish fish is of a female. The males are actually puny in comparison. Once the little male has found a mate, he bites the female's skin and the two fuse together, making the male totally and completely dependent on his mate.
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The appearance of the microscopic Water Bear is enough to make anyone scream: "Kill it with fire!" It'll take a lot more to get this micro-animal down. It's so resilient that it can even survive the vaccum of space.
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Hey man, why the long face? Let's turn that frown upside down. Hey, wait, what are you doing, Sarcastic Fringehead? No! Stop! Get that mouth away from me! Ahhhh!!!
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This 100-armed creature caught by a Singaporean fisherman went viral recently. It's actually a Basket Star, a close relative of the Starfish.
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Earthworms are slimy, and for the most part, stay pretty much in the dirt, away from us, unless it starts to rain. But the Bobbit Worm is a 10-foot creature from hell that lies under the sand, waiting for its prey to come close -- then it attacks with a force that can break an average fish in half.
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Aren't sea cucumbers supposed to be more, uhm, cucumbery? The Pelagothuria natatrix must have missed the memo to be the most unassuming sea creature there ever was because this ancient sea cucumber spends its life adrift, rather than sifting through the ocean floor like its cousins. It has an umbrella-like shape with tentacles coming out of its mouth. Although it was a common sight when it was first described in the 1890s, it is extremely rare today.
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Release the Kraken! As if a giant squid weren't bad enough to keep us out of the water, in 2007 fishermen managed to drag on board a Colossal Squid -- all 43 feet and 900 pounds of it!
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Step aside Jaws, the Megamouth Shark is the scariest thing living in the ocean. Why? Because since it was first discovered in 1976, only 55 specimens of this creature, which can grow more than 5.5 meters long, have been found. So, if something that big and terrifying managed to stay hidden for that long, who knows what else could be swimming down there?
