When you really think about what might be lurking in the deepest, darkest depths of the ocean, it can be a little scary. Who knows what's down there in the many crevices we have yet to discover? Frightening? Sure. But it's also a great mystery. And we love a good mystery.
Speaking of scary, imagine the surprise that Australian fisherman David Guillot experienced when he pulled in a net while fishing in an area in the Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia last month. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, he was merely fishing for dory and sea perch, but what he pulled up onto his boat, the Western Alliance, ended up being literally prehistoric.
The frightening fish Guillot snagged just happened to be a frilled shark – a seafaring creature that has been around for about 80 million years. The rarely seen frilled shark looks a mix between an eel and a shark, and it will absolutely become the thing that haunts your nightmares.
“The head on it was like something out of a horror movie," Guillot told Fairfax Radio last week. "It was quite horrific looking… It was quite scary actually.”
With 300 teeth spread over 25 rows, the frilled shark looks exactly like you might expect a modern-day seafaring dinosaur to look like. It is horrifying.
“We couldn't find a fisherman who had ever seen one before,” Simon Boag from the South East Trawl Fishing Association told ABC.net.au last week. “It does look 80 million years old. It looks prehistoric, it looks like it's from another time!”
Guillot showed the fish to Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), who confirmed that the hideous creature is, in fact, a frilled shark. However, they declined keeping the specimen for their collection.
According to ABC.net.au, Guillot's unusual catch has since been sold to Griffith's Sea Shell Museum in Lakes Entrance, where it will be on display in the coming weeks.
Check out the video below to see more photos of the frilled shark and learn about its prehistoric history!
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