Is it a creepy fish, a monster of the deep or an alien? These were some of the questions on social media after images of a bizarre looking creature were posted on social media last week.
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The images were taken by Jean le Roux in Melkbosstrand on Friday and depict a grizzly-looking creature, with bright red scales and a jawline that nightmares are made of, that had washed up on the beach.
While small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, the creatures apparently look quite different when they are alive in their natural habitat.
However, their appearance once washed up on the beach, would have many thinking twice before entering the water.
The fish is believed to be a red rocksucker (Chorisochismus dentex) and is supposedly rather cute, with fleshy lips, when alive its natural habitat.
Native to African waters, red rocksuckers are commonly found in tidal pools from the Namibian coastline, towards the northern reaches of KwaZulu-Natal.
They occasionally wash up dead on beaches where the sun affects their scales first, causing their ‘skin’ to shrink and their lips to move back far enough to expose their terrifying jaws.
They feed predominantly on limpets, an aquatic snail that uses a muscular ‘foot’ to cling to rocks.
When a rocksucker finds a limpet about to move, it positions itself to face the mollusc before leaping forward and upward, diving onto the shell with mouth opened, and levering the limpet off the substrate before swallowing it immediately.
During a 1980 study, researchers found that some 12% of the rocksuckers’ diet was made up of spiny urchins.
Hard parts like shells and urchin exoskeletons (known as tests) are hard to digest, so the fish eliminates them whole, encased in mucous capsules.
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Picture: Jean le Roux / Facebook
