i saw some really weird creatures in this gross swamp near my house. emial me for more details. i have pictures.
sleepysummerguy@aol.com

How about you post them on this here site friend so that we can all enjoy them?

Here's the Picture Guys...

hey thanks oracal!!!! this is one of the creatures that is in a small sawp out side my house. there ios about 6 of them in there. i cought this one with my hands, the blood is mine. i have seen them eat small rodetns, and have attacks my dog when he was drinking out of the swap. im not sure what they are. im kind of nervous. the water is evaporating. i am not sure what to do with them, the swap is only about(10ft by 10ft) and there dieing. two have died so far. does anyone know what the hell they are?!?
Hunter

Hunter, Have you taken one of these creatures to a museum to see if they can I.D. it for you ?

i have not. honestly i am very afaird of them. that one almost bit my finger off, that blood is from it. i have sent it to many other internet sites, but cant ifnd an answer. i dunno could be anyhting. this picture was taken a few eweeks ago.. although i was down there the other day smoking a cigg, and saw alot of comoation, so i ran. it was night and i was sacred.

Hunta, This fish looks a lot like a fish that is caught of the east coast of Australia called a 'Stargazer'. I have caught one of these myself and they can grow quite large...Up to almost 3 ft.

This is the only picture I could get of one front on but you wil get the idea:D

The Mouth isn't open but believe me, When it opens it's like a bucket

where do you live Hunter? that creature has fish-like qualities and also appears turtle-like.

here in Alabama i have seen what some people call alligator gar- they are a cross between an alligator and a fish(not technically, but they look similar). the ones ive seen locally are much different from the ones i see on webpages so i know weird local species of things can develop. for example, the gar i saw once was very green, quite snake-like and had jagged/crooked teeth. after i saw it, i was scared to swim in fresh water! my dad caught it fishing in some grassy area next to the shore so i believe it was customized to kill in that area.

i know there are alligator snapping turtles that become quite fishlike. i caught one as a child with a group of friends and it bit one of my buddies fingers off while he was trying to get it to open its mouth for a picture(it was over 6ft wide- head to tail). can you describe their behavior more? like do they quickly open and close their mouth? can it extend its head? does it have a shell? you may have a very rare type of a local species of turtle there. the area of the bottom of the mouth looks similar to turtles ive seen but it has a very fish-like quality to it.

i definitely agree with whoever said you should take it to a museum- perhaps contact a local natural historian to come and visit your swamp. you have something rare there. thanks for posting this, its quite interesting

huntahboob,
When asked if you took one to a museum, you said you haven't, and said: "honestly i am very afaird of them"

So you are not too afraid to catch one with your own hands, but you are afraid to take the one you already caught to a museum?

What gives

Homer, maybe it is the museum that he is afraid of.

More pictures would be helpful, it is very hard to eastablish that it is anything but some sort of fish from this pic. Something from a lateral view would be great, and a doarsal and ventral photo would be good as well.

The more information you can give, the faster the answer will come.

Huntahboob ,
If you don't particularly like the Idea of trying to catch yourself another one of these , then why not just take the photo to a museum or the Biology department at your local University/ college . They will either be able to tell you on the spot what it is or they will be interested in coming out and having a look on site .

to clear it up, i was scared of them AFTER it bit me. and yes, i am from a southern state. my son was dfown there mowing the lawn today, and said the vernal pool they were in was drying up more, there was one or two he said. i went down and saw them. they were still there, i called the local animal recues team, and they came and took them away, they said that they are a fish like what dswatcharz said. .. they corak like frogs when they are in hamrs reach. the team ddint know how they got there though. they think that someone may have been keeping them there. not a good idea the pewople saifd.

Hey Hunta At least they are out of you hair now mate.

Did the Animal Rescue team happen to tell you what the name of the fish is ?,
I would really like to check them out a bit more.

Hunter, I'm glad you had someone come out and rescue
those mysterious creatures. Universities around here
(the east coast) are always interested in plants and animals
from the waters.

I still think they are ugly fish.

schadeaux, isn't that a form of 'lookism'?

hubby is an angler (usually lochs and inshore) he thought it might be an anglerfish but as he not confident to name the brute as USA have different breeds and names



schadeaux I'm a defender in your case of 'lookism vs the State' lol
jeepers what's next ?!

the people at cryptozoology.com seem to think its something called a goosefish, but im not seeing any resemblance.

I don't know, it seems to bear more than a passing resemblance - CLICK HERE
Although, as Oracle mentioned, it would have been great if he had taken a few more pictures, why take just one, and with such little detail?

Magikman

QUOTE (SpaceyKC @ May 15 2003, 01:18 PM)

schadeaux,  isn't that a form of 'lookism'?

I'll have to check with the ASPCA on that.

Thanx for the picture MM , I would say they are the same fish !, And to agree with Schadeaux it's as ugly as hell as well

ya MM, i see a little resemblance in that pic but if you look at others there is not much resemblance at all(do some more surfing for images). also, those fish are saltwater and this guy says his creatures were in a swamp(which if it was a pool im assuming is fresh). also, i have not found any mention of them 'croaking' like he described.

the pic he posted is not of a flat fish and the goosefish is very flat, with a mouth almost on top of its head. some of the pics ive seen of it look similar to a flounder.

lastly, check the teeth. a goosefish has long spikey teeth and that creature does not.

All good points, DS, which is basically why I didn't say it positively was a goosefish, there are similarities, though. You've even said that there can be noticeable differences amongst the same species of fish, depending on their location. Mind you, I'm not an expert on fish, but there is also this to consider;

I don't understand why there is only the one picture, especially for something so supposedly 'strange', I'd have taken as many as I could, it's not like the thing was going anywhere. The photo is quite striking, almost deliberately so, in my opinion.

The credibility is in the details, unfortunately there is very little detail, even with the photo. Given it's questionable clarity, all that's left to rely on is 'huntahboobs' accounting for what transpired. The nature of the photo has already made me suspicious, I'm not about to accept his story as gospel, that's just the kind of person I am. There's far too many unanswered questions and I think hunta is being unnecessarily vague. Apparently, however, the fish didn't come as any big surprise to the animal rescue team, funny how they knew they were in an area they weren't suppose to be, but couldn't positively identify the type of fish to hunta, except for an off handed comment about being similar to an 'alligator gar', which it very definitely isn't. Truthfully, if this thing is as strange as it's made out to be, I'm surprised it didn't make the nightly news, you still see plenty of reports of rampant alligators being rounded up, and they're as common as goldfish.

hey guys, sorry i havent written in a while, i was in jail .i understadn you want more info, sorry is i was vauge, what would you like to know? well, let me start by saything that it was about a foot long, and wide as my f***ing ex-wife (hehe funny) uhh although it looks real rough, it was quite swuishy, almost spongeish, they guys who came to get it wernt very helpful. to maake u understand more, they wernt even a real resue team, just soime charter fishers i know from the local marina( i lifve near the ocean) they didnt know. they tested the swamp, and said i was brakish, a mix betwenn salt, and fresh water. they think is may be some sort of rare flounder, or angler. they were pretty flat. i just had it wide open in that picture. i did take more pics, but they didnt even come out. thye were blurry, and the flash was messed up, im not too much of a wiz at that stuff. well, if anyhtring else waqnts to be herad, il tell

ya, i definitely agree with you MM. i think it might be some local version of a goosefish- maybe being in that brackish swamp for so long modified them a bit.

i know that scavenger fish are damned hard to kill though. they live in the most extreme environments. a good example:

one of my wife's ex boyfriends had a pleco. anyone who has an aquarium knows them as 'sucker fish' because they eat algae off the side of the tank by sucking it clean. anyways, he tore down his aquarium when they moved and transferred all his fish to a new one. he put the old aquarium (with a small amount of water/rocks/items in the back of his garage. well, a few years go by, and he wants an old aquarium decoration from the old aquarium in the garage, he goes to reach inside and notices the bottom of the water move. it was one of his old plecos, only it had grown around 1 and 1/2 foot long. it had lived in around 2 inches of stale water for years. apparently the garage was damp enough to keep the water from evaporating and the pleco just kept eating whatever grew in there.

[B] big news i justgot a word back from some local fisherman and they said it is indeed a goosefish, they still dont know how they got in the swamp, but they said since i do live right on the beech, someone may have realsed them there. im out of jail .im pretty happy about that.
-Jim ray morse-

I don't know what the hell that thing is...but if I hook when fishing, it is staying on the line

i finally found it! we've been hoaxed...

its called a grenadier fish, and lo and behold i found the exact pic on a site about them. this dude never took the pic at all.


http://www.weirdlinks.com/seamonsters.htm

@ huntahboob

Excellent find DS, That picture did seem strangely familiar to me but I didn't want to jump in and call him a liar straight up. But there is no mistaking it mate that is the identical picture that he claimed to of taken himself.

Well done, DS, nothing feels better than solidly closing the lid on something like this.

Lola - no big deal, you see examples like this all the time, it helps improve your ability to recognize deception and causes one to become more wary and cautious.

sorry MM, just thought we shouldn't lie in here

so is HBoob gulity of not taking the photo. I think he did, those 2 photos were his on that site!!

WoW ... What a big mouth it has got there ... lol

hey guyz, just joined. it could be that fish-type thing, but does that fish come from salt or fresh water. and plus it attacked your dog and decided to chew on your ickle pinky. we need more info on this thing. is it hotile when you provoke it? it's like nothing i've seen here in tennessee, or the U.S. as for the goosefish thing, hell if i know. i'll check that out. but i've never heard of a goosefish before, i'm only 13.

Umm, my mom always told me if I can't say anything nice not to say anything at all. (everyone's mom told them to say that, I know.) But what was the point of hoaxing that? Is this dude so starved for attention that he needs to fool a bunch of random people on a website? It just seems really pointless to me.

oh, huntaboob, you said you lived in a southern state... which one? i live in tennessee.

were we hoaxed?

Back to the fish-what an UGLY sucker! I am telling you, I don't handle fish. One jumps out of MY tank, he's on his own. The story about the Pleco's creeps me out because I HATE those....

One time I will share the story about one I tried to poison.

Down in Wicki Watchi, Florida, they are wild in the water. Yeah, and about 3 ft. long....

I heard this story about Grenidier Fish. When fishermen catch them at very deep depths, and pull them up, the presure causes the GF's stomachs to come out their eyes!

OMG that is the uglyish fish I have ever seen I hate all water critters the most especially when you go to the beach I hate not knowing what can crawl up my leg under water like this fellow..............

That pic is on Cryptzoology.com's gallery.
Also I have seen it on a website.
Search for Monkfish,GooseFish or Lophius americanus and you will come across the same pic eventually.

Here is a pic of one.Some People eat these.

http://www.dnr.state.md.us/fisheries/art/monkfish.JPG

It's on cryptozoology.com's gallery because bizarro posted it there asking if anyone knew what it was.

I know, and that was from ages ago.

Yeesh, people eat that?!

I guess its the equvilent of Michael Jackson in our contry...

I think it's great you got those fish out of there.
Question: Do you own the swamp? and if you do, do you think a former owner could have been trying to sell them on the black market? If not, Who DOES own it, what are they and how did they get there?
Thanks. This topic is truley facinating!

Eeeeww. I can imagine how you would be scared of picking up a fish like that (sepecially since it almost bit your finger off)

but still, I'm glad they're ok now.

Edit
OH MY GOD IT WAS A HOAX!!! RRRRRR THAT ANNOYES THE LIVING HECK OUT OF ME. RRRR!!!!!![U]

:oSorry for that vouch of support. I accidently skipped a page or 2 while reading. Shame on you hunterboo!!!