Walking along the beach in Texas City, Texas, Preeti Desai found a very strange fanged creature washed up on the shore. She posted these pictures of the animal on Twitter asking people to identify it.

(Image credit: Preeti Desai)

Adam Summers, a professor at the University of Washington replied, claiming the creature was in fact identifiable because of the “remnant of skin coloration, the body and head shape, the teeth and the shape of the jaw they are in.”

Summers believes the eyes of the creature had actually decayed and that is why it appeared to have none.

He said one of his peers identified the fish as a fangtooth snake-eel, crediting Ben Frable at UC San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “They live in shallow water sometimes. And wash up on beaches even without storms,” Fable said.

The fangtooth snake-eel is also titled aplatophis chauliodus, and is usually found in waters between 30 and 90 metres deep in the western Atlantic. It eats crustaceans and small fish, with the potential to reach 33 inches long.

According to Newsweek, all kinds of other animals were stranded during the hurricane:

“Creatures of all kinds were affected by the strong hurricanes that battered the southern U.S. in recent weeks.

Numerous animals were stranded when Hurricane Irma lashed Florida last week, including two manatees marooned in Florida’s Sarasota Bay and later rescued by a group of people.

Florida residents were at least spared any encounters with alligators, who were confined to Gatorland in Orlando to avoid posing any risk to humans.”

(Image credit: Cole G)