A 3-foot sea creature with buck teeth, resembling a legless crocodile, was discovered washed ashore in Virginia, US, by a man known for spotting such unusual finds.
A massive armored sea creature was found washed ashore on an abandoned beach.
While driving across Assateague Island in Virginia, US, Allen Sklar noticed a creature lying still on the sand and promptly stopped to investigate.
It quickly became evident that this was not your typical fish stranded on the shore, but rather a peculiar armored creature that harks back to the era of the dinosaurs.
The creature, approximately three feet in length, displayed a pronounced overbite, with its upper teeth visible beneath a elongated pointed snout, as reported by Newsweek.
Luckily for Allen, this wasn’t his first encounter with such an unusual creature, so he calmly snapped a photo of what he identified as an Atlantic sturgeon.
Allen mentioned discovering the fish on the beach at Assateague Island, a 37-mile-long strip of land, where he promptly took a few pictures of the creature.
Allen informed Newsweek, “I drive along the 12 miles of beach around 100 days a year, so I come across a lot of things that others don’t. This was the second sturgeon I’ve seen in 27 years of driving on the island.”
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. As 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 is a small one; researchers have found them up to 160 pounds in the rivers and tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay, and they can weigh over a thousand pounds in other parts of the world.”
“Overfished to the point of nearly becoming extinct, they were placed on the Endangered Species list in 2012.”
The Atlantic sturgeon, a prehistoric fish, inhabits rivers and coastal waters and can reach lengths of up to 14 feet.
