An "alien-like" creature with human lips has washed up on an Australian beach, footage has revealed.
Local Drew Lambert was on Bondi Beach on April 5 when he spotted the bizarre animal among the debris that had washed ashore.
A video taken by Lambert shows the creature lying on the beach. It appears to have huge lips, not dissimilar to a humans. However, its skin looks similar to a shark, Lambert told news and content provider Storyful.
A photo of the creature has been posted to Reddit, where social media users have been theorizing what it could be.
One user said: "I thought it a ray, but its missing like, everything."
Another wrote: "Its a ray of some sort that appears to be missing its fins and tail? It also looks bloated, probably from the decomposition process."
Lambert told Yahoo News Australia that at first he thought it could be a "weird form on shark," however he noticed the mouth was on the bottom of its body and while its skin is not dissimilar to a shark, it lacked a dorsal fin.
"[I thought] oh my god, that's weird," he told Yahoo News Australia. "It looked like it was puckering up for a kiss."
Lambert told Storyful that even though he has lived in Bondi for 20 years, he has never seen anything similar to this particular creature before.
A supervisor at Sea Life Sydney Aquirum, Laetitia Hannan, later confirmed to Yahoo News that despite its fins and tail being missing, it must be a coffin ray, a fish native to Australia.
Coffin rays can be found in temperate to tropical seas around the country. They can occasionally be found on sand in shallow bays, however they can also travel as far as 656 feet below the surface of the water.
Lambert told Storyful its intestines may have ballooned, giving it its even more unusual appearance.
On April 2, Bondi Beach was completely engulfed in water during a severe storm. The sands completely disappeared as waves slashed the shore.
Record breaking floods have swept across New South Wales in recent weeks. In some areas, the high tides have caused debris to be carried to the shore from rivers and other bodies of water. This could have caused the creature to wash up on the beach.
Australia is home to many distinctive and unusual animals found nowhere else. As Australia was isolated from the rest of the world for millions of years, its wildlife evolved in unique ways. This can often see lifeforms becoming, bigger, smaller, or much more specialized than their continental ancestors, the so-called "island rule."
This is not the only strange discovery that has been made following the severe weather.
At the end of March, Alex Tan was walking on Maroochydore Beach in Queensland, Australia, when he came across a bizarre creature. It had human-like hands and a reptile-type skull and tail, with patches of black fur.
In a video of the discovery, Tan says: "I've stumbled across something weird. This is like one of those things you see when people claim they've found aliens."
Some experts claimed it could be a Brushtail possum, a Wallaby, or a Tree kangaroo.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Robyn White is a Newsweek Nature Reporter based in London, UK. Her focus is reporting on wildlife, science and the ... Read more
