Fisherman reels in ‘alien-like’ creature that looks like it’s from another planet
A deep-sea fisherman has revealed his latest eerie catch – a creature so bizarre it’s been compared to an alien.
The fish, with its large, bulbous body, tiny eyes and gaping mouth, looks like something you’d expect to find on another planet. Roman Fedortsov hooked the beast in the northern Pacific Ocean and shared footage of his unusual find with his 600,000 Instagram followers.
He later identified the creature as an Aptocyclus ventricosus, also known as the smooth lumpfish or smooth lumpsucker. This species of deep-sea ray-finned fish can grow up to a staggering 44cm, according to What’s The Jam.
Whilst the smooth lumpfish is certainly distinctive, Fedortsov’s catch appears to have become swollen, possibly due to the pressure change when brought to the surface, resulting in its bloated body.
Fedortsov, who mainly works on a trawler in Murmansk in northwest Russia, shared a clip of the creature on board his boat, attracting 200,000 viewers, many of whom are now convinced that aliens exist – or at least swim – among us. “Yeah, aliens are real,” one person declared in response.
“That is 100% an alien,” agreed another viewer. A third added: “Looks like an alien head. And a fourth exclaimed: ” And a fourth exclaimed: “What a horror.”
Others replied with somewhat extreme reactions, including one individual who grimly urged Fedortsov: “Kill it and burn it and don’t ever catch one of those again!” Another joked: “Fished in Chernobyl?”
Whilst others even likened the fish to something out the movies, Alien vs Predator and X-Men, as well as film characters Megamind and Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter.
According to nature experts at iNaturalist, meanwhile, the smooth lumpfish earned its scientific moniker Cyclopterus ventricosus back in 1769 thanks to German zoologist Peter Simon Pallas, pegging its origins to the Sea of Okhotsk’s Tauyskaya Bay near Ol’skiy Island.
The website continues: “They look brownish gray with dark spots dorsally, muddy gray ventrally. They have naked skin without scales and tubercles. A smooth lumpfish has no dorsal spines or anal spines, eight to nine dorsal soft rays, and seven to nine anal soft rays.
“They have a rounded caudal fin and large and broadly based pectoral fins. Their pelvic fins are modified to form a clinging disc with a thickened margin on the ventral surface of the body. They have their first dorsal fins completed embedded under the skin.”
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