Woman finds ‘amazing’ rare transparent fish on Tasmanian beach

A Tasmanian woman has shared her incredible find on the sand at Bruny Island, mistaking a peculiar piece of sea life for seaweed.

A Tasmanian woman has shared her incredible find on the sand at Bruny Island, mistaking an almost completely transparent fish for a piece of seaweed.

“I was pretty surprised to see a little eye on it,” she wrote on Facebook.

“Honestly how is it see-through, where’s it brain, or anything inside for that matter,” another commented on the post. ”I’m so confused but so fascinated.”

A Tasmanian woman has shared her incredible find on the sand at Bruny Island, mistaking a completely translucent fish for a piece of seaweed.

Biologist at Macquarie University Professor Culum Brown said the peculiar fish was larvae from a species of eel that “hatch way out in the ocean and are initially part of the plankton”.

“They are small, thin, flat and transparent and as they approach the coast they gradually change and start to become more elongate — the typical eel shape — and become green/brown in colour,” he said via Yahoo News.

“Soon after they start to migrate up rivers and creeks and become increasingly like baby eels (ie they look like little adult eels).”

The peculiar find was larvae from a species of eel that ‘hatch way out in the ocean and are initially part of the plankton’.

While we’re on the topic of weird and wacky creatures washing up on beaches, take a look at this one.

A beachgoer in the US snapped incredible pics of what can only be described as a “nope lamp” washed up on the shores of Newport Beach at Crystal Cove State Park.

The creature, officially identified as a Pacific footballfish, is a resident of the deepest parts of the ocean where fish are forced to evolve with lanterns to navigate the shadowy depths. The Pacific footballfish is part of the anglerfish family consisting of over 300 species.

The alien-esque fellow pictured here came in at 45cm, but the largest of the anglerfish family can reach almost 30 times that size with the Ceratias holboelli capable of measuring in at a whopping 1.2m.

If you thought stepping on a washed-up stingray in the sand was enough to cack your dacks, be thankful you don’t live in southern California.

“State park rangers and lifeguards with Crystal Cove State Park were alerted to a weird looking fish that washed ashore Friday morning from beach visitor Ben Estes who happened to notice it on the sand,” a post from Davey‘s Locker Sportfishing read, collecting 42,000 reactions and over 30,000 comments.

“Though the fish itself is not rare, it is extremely rare to see on this intact along a beach in southern CA.”