The discovery of a mysterious creature with no eyes, washed ashore on an Australian beach, has left authorities stumped.
Sherry Simmons, 47, found the unidentified beast on Mulambin beach in Queensland while walking her French Bulldog, Tank.
At first she thought it was a large piece of petrified wood, but when she got up close she saw it was nothing of the sort.
‘The tide was coming in and I thought from a distance that it was a large piece of petrified wood,’ Mrs Simmons said.
‘As I got closer I realised it was some sort of creature. I poked it with a stick and it was soft to the touch.
‘There is a small fin, but the weird part is that there were no eyes anywhere. It looked really heavy.
‘As you can see it is strange looking – if you look down at the thick end, you will see what looks like a leg.
‘But if you follow it back into the water it looks like a fin. Other than that there were little to no features evident.
‘I was a little scared as it was not identifiable. If I had not had my puppy with me I would have investigated further.’
Mrs Simmons, from nearby Yeppoon, thought maybe it was a dugong and contacted Gold Coast’s marine park, Sea World.
They agreed that it could indeed be a dugong, however scientists at Queensland’s environment department believe this is unlikely.
They say it could potentially be a shark liver, but they were unable to recover the carcass and so they can’t say for sure.
‘The deceased animal in the photo appears to be a marine mammal,’ a spokesperson said.
‘But due to decomposition and limited information available, it is difficult to determine what species.
‘The stranding has not been reported to us and our officers searched the beach and found no sign of the carcass, which may have been washed away with the tide.’
Mrs Simmons said it brought home how much humans still don’t know about the sea.
‘Now that I discovered this creature, I think there is a huge amount we humans don’t know that we think we do,’ she said.
‘Think about the odds that we would know every single animal, mammal, and creature that’s ever existed.
‘It’s impossible and I’m not quite sure we will ever get there to be honest because things evolve.
‘There are new species of plants and trees that are being discovered through natural evolution.’
