A deep sea fisherman’s catch has left everyone in shock (stock) (Image: Getty)
A deep sea has unveiled his creepy capture – a nightmarish creature that some have likened to an alien.
Sporting a large, bulbous body, shrunken eyes and gaping mouth, the fish almost resembles something you’d imagine discovering on another planet. Fisherman Roman Fedortsov reeled in the beast a northern part of the , sharing footage of his new friend with his 600,000 followers on .
Fedortsov later identified the creature as an Aptocyclus ventricosus – also known as the smooth lumpfish or smooth lumpsucker. The species of marine ray-finned fish is found in the deep sea and can measure up to a whopping 44cm, reports
Whilst the appearance of the smooth lumpfish is certainly unique, Fedortsov’s find appears to have become swollen – possibly due to the pressure change in being brought to the surface – resulting in it’s distended body.
Fedortsov, who largely works on a trawler in Murmansk in the northwest part of , shared a clip of the beast aboard the boat, prompting 200,000 people tune in, many of whom are now convinced that extraterrestrials walk – or at least swim – among us.
“Yeah, aliens are real,” one person declared. “That is 100% an alien,” agreed another viewer. A third added: “Looks like an alien head. And a fourth exclaimed: “What a horror.”
More extreme reactions followed, as one user grimly urged: “Kill it and burn it and don’t ever catch one of those again!” A second quipped: “Fished in Chernobyl?”
A third likened the species to a movie franchise: “Alien or predator?” Whilst others likened the fish to ‘Megamind’ after the cartoon villain played by Will Ferrell, who sports a characteristically large head, X-Men and ‘The Dark Lord’ – Harry Potter villain, Voldemort.
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According to , the smooth lumpfish was first formally described as Cyclopterus ventricosus in 1769 by the German zoologist, Peter Simon Pallas with its type locality given as Tauyskaya Bay near Ol’skiy Island in the Sea of Okhotsk.
It adds: “They look brownish gray with dark spots dorsally, muddy gray ventrally. They have naked skin without scales and tubercles. A smooth lumpfish has no dorsal spines or anal spines, eight to nine dorsal soft rays, and seven to nine anal soft rays.
“They have a rounded caudal fin and large and broadly based pectoral fins. Their pelvic fins are modified to form a clinging disc with a thickened margin on the ventral surface of the body. They have their first dorsal fins completed embedded under the skin.”