Rare Sea Creature With Fang-Like Teeth Washes Up Alive On Beach, Baffles Experts [Video]

A sea creature with a gaping mouth full of fang-like teeth mysteriously washed ashore alive on a Southern California beach last week.

A video of the creature was shared on Facebook by Davey’s Locker Sportfishing and Whale Watching. “Creature from the Twilight Zone!” Davey’s Locker announced on Facebook.

The creature has been identified as the deep-sea Longnose Lancetfish, which was found squirming about on the sand near the edge of the shoreline in Laguna Beach. It had gaping fanged jaws, enormous eyes, a sailfin, and a long, slithery body.

Goff Tours, a professional Surf School in Laguna Beach, captured the footage.

The creature, which is found in the Ocean Twilight Zone, emerged on shore within minutes of a mysterious sonic boom, Goff Tours reported, according to FTW USA Today. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution describes the Ocean Twilight Zone as a layer of water that stretches around the globe and lies about 650 to 3,300 feet below the ocean surface. This zone is beyond the reach of sunlight.

Experts were baffled as to how the lancetfish found in waters as shallow as 10 fathoms in Oregon and the Gulf of Mexico washed up on the beach. They added it was extremely rare to see one of these fish alive along a beach.

“After capturing this video, the fish was pulled safely back into the water, where it swam away, seemingly unharmed,” Davey’s Locker reported.

"Growing to more than 7-feet long, lancetfish are one of the largest deep-sea fishes, swimming to depths more than a mile below the sea surface. Lancetfish are notorious cannibals and also feed voraciously on many other fish and invertebrates. Many descriptions of new species of fishes, squids, and octopuses have been based on specimens collected from lancetfish stomachs, since food within their stomachs are often found in a nearly pristine state, barely digested," according to Davey’s Locker.

"Scientists with NOAA Fisheries Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center speculate that lancetfish may eat as much as they can whenever they find food, then digest it later when they need it. Their stomachs provide a window into the rarely studied twilight zone in the ocean, where the fish mainly hunt."