Unusual sea creatures like giant squids or horrifying aliens are nothing new, but they usually stay in works in fiction.
The residents of Swansea Heads, a small beach town in New South Wales, Australia, experience a real-life horror on their shores when a mysterious whale-like creature with sharp teeth made an appearance.
Its mysterious corpse confused and horrified locals and Internet users, who speculated it might be an alien, sea monster or unhealthy killer whale.
Luckily, photographer Rod Owen saw the possible monster and snapped a few pictures of it for scientists to identify. Ronnie Ling, president of the Organization for the Rescue and Research of Ceteceans in Australia, saw the photos on social media and instantly recognized the beast as a pygmy sperm whale.
Apparently, these animals are commonly found in New South Wales, where their fifteen-foot length and horrifying teeth terrify residents. The pygmy sperm whale was hunted nearly to extinction in the 1800s, as whaling vessels sought valuable spermaceti from the creatures to use as candle wax. No more than ten thousand adults are thought to remain in the wild.
That’s bad news for biodiversity but a good thing for the unfortunate Australians who have to encounter this sea creature on their beaches.
