Weird Creature Washes Ashore in Georgia

An image of the strange sea creature.  (Image credit: Jeff Warren)

A strange sea creature was found washed ashore in Georgia's Wolf Island Wildlife Refuge on March 16th.  Waycross, Georgia resident Jeff Warren discovered the creature while on a boat trip with his son. 

Warren noticed what he at first thought was the corpse of a seal being pecked apart by a large heron, but upon further inspection the creature appeared to be a "Loch Ness-type thing," he said.

Warren described the creature as four to five feet in length with two fins, and teeth about an eighth of an inch long.

According to Warren, after capturing the weird creature on video, he told his story to locals at nearby restaurant Skipper's Fish Camp, where he was told of local legend "Alty," a plesiosaur-like creature similar to the Loch Ness Monster.

Director Dan Ashe of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service told Action News Jax that the creature could be a decomposing mundane animal, such as a basking shark.  According to Ashe, a basking shark can decompose so as to resemble a prehistoric creature with a long neck and small head.

Basking sharks can grow in excess of 30 feet long, but their young are born at around five to five-and-a-half feet in length.  Summertime is mating season for basking sharks, and their three-and-a-half year gestation period means that their young are born in the winter.  The four-to-five foot creature found by Warren could be a juvenile of the species washed ashore and partially decomposed.