A mystery sea creature with a bird-like beak, fur on its tail and twice the size of a human being has washed up on a Russian beach and completely baffled experts.
The remains of the giant beast have been found in the Russian Far East on the shoreline of Sakhalin Island, and the animal has caused a stir on social media since nobody can actually figure out what the hell it is.
Some think the carcass may belong to a Ganges River dolphin from India, because of the long body and narrow beak nose. But the fur on the tail and the size would dispute that.
Comments on some pictures on social media joke that the animal got lost and somehow made it to Russia.
One wrote:
Probably, our summer is so cold that even the Indian Dolphins getting into local waters, are covered with fur.
But one expert insisted it wouldn’t be possible for a fresh water Ganges dolphin to make it to the Far East, and survive in the salty ocean.
Nikolay Kim, deputy head of the Forecasting Department at the Sakhalin Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography, said:
According to a characteristic of the skin, it is a rare species. I doubt that it lived in our waters. Most likely, the animal was brought by a warm current. We often get tropical and subtropical species here and when they cool down they stay here and then die.
I can confidently say that this is some kind of a dolphin. However, it has fur. It’s unusual. Dolphins do not have any fur.
So, there you go – it’s a dolphin. Or maybe it isn’t, we can’t be sure…
