Mysterious Baby Dragon-Like Sea Creature Reeled In By Fisherman, Photo Goes Viral

A photo of a mysterious sea creature, which looked like a "baby dragon," went viral on social media after it was shared on Instagram by a Russian fisherman, who had reeled in the fish.

Roman Fedortsov, 39, who often shared photos of the rare fish he found while exploring the sea, wrote in the caption: “Just a quote ‘It’s one thing to chase something nameless, but quite another thing to find it’ – G.F. Lovecraft.”

The sea creature was light pink and silver in color with large cartoon-like eyes. It had winged-shaped fins and a long, spiked tail.

Fedortsov has over 646,000 followers on Instagram. The image was liked by more than 22,000 people on Instagram.

“It looks a little like a newly hatched dragon to me,” one person wrote in the comments, with another saying, “Looks like a baby dragon!”

“Looks mythological,” wrote another. “Welp, I think I don’t need to swim in the ocean ever again,” another freaked-out user wrote.

The fish was later identified as a chimera — a cartilaginous fish also known as a “ghost shark,” the New York Post reported.

Like sharks and rays, chimeras have cartilaginous skeletons, according to Britannica. There are about 47 species of chimeras and their colors range from silvery to blackish.

Marine life is so vast that there are thousands of different kinds of creatures that people are still unaware of. There have been several instances in the past, where fishermen have come across weird-looking mysterious creatures. In many cases, these creatures have also washed up on beaches, baffling not only beachgoers but also experts.

Earlier this week, a mysterious sea creature with a bloated body and human-like lips washed up on a beach in Australia. Beachgoer Drew Lambert and his friend found the weird alien-like creature between seaweeds while taking a walk on Sydney's Bondi Beach. "[I thought] oh my god, that's weird. I just looked at it and say 'What the hell does this fish have human lips on it? It looked like it was puckering up for a kiss," Lambert told Yahoo News Australia. Laetitia Hannan, a supervisor at Sea Life Sydney Aquarium, identified the creature as a numb ray or coffin ray.