RARE Creature Washes Ashore

A marine life researcher recently made a shocking discovery on a beach in Texas.

Jace Tunnell of the University of Texas Marine Institute found a 4-foot-long sea creature on Mustang Island, according to a video posted to YouTube.

On the YouTube page of the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve, Tunnell posted this video as part of an educational series.

Tunnell identified the creature as an exceptionally large American eel. There have been some weird fish species being caught in the past few months like the 15-Year-Old Angler Catches Extremely Rare Fish.

“If you’ve never seen one of these before, [you should know] this one is larger than normal. This is basically as big as they get,” he says in the video. “This thing is massive…Usually, they’re a lot smaller. People use them for fishing bait and stuff like that. Of course, this one is too big for that.”

Jace Tunnell of the University of Texas Marine Institute is no stranger to creepy things washing ashore.

The American eel is listed as endangered, which he said is due to the building of dams in the rivers that they inhabit.

The eel is estimated to be about 4 feet long.

What is an American eel?

The American eel has a serpentine body with minuscule scales, and can appear to be scaleless.

It has an exceptional range of latitudes across America, being seen as far west as New Mexico and commonplace in the Caribbean and West Indies.

Sadly, due to the barring of upstream spawning migrations by dams, it’s now highly uncommon in Texas – particularly around its central and western parts.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, American eels are the only freshwater eels in North America.

Tunnell thinks that the eel specimen he found is likely a female. According to the agency, they are technically considered “catadromous,” meaning they live mainly in rivers and estuaries, but migrate to the ocean to spawn.

After spawning offshore, female eels often die. The species is different from the commonly-known moray eel.

The cause of death of the one that washed ashore on Mustang Island is not known.

 

Sources: NYPost