The creature was a writhing mass of arms. Image Credit: YouTube / NYPost
Footage of a bizarre writhing specimen fished up near the island of Sentosa has been posted online.
54-year-old Ong Han Boon had been on a fishing trip when he reeled in a creature so strange that he thought it was an alien.
"When I pulled it out of the water, I was completely flummoxed by what I was looking at," he said.
"I've had quite a few odd things come out of the ocean, but I have never seen anything like this before in my life. It had all these arms waving around."
Grabbing a video camera Boon recorded the mysterious creature which resembled a big clump of writhing worm-like tentacles that wriggled around in a decidedly unnerving manner.
"It's either an alien or I've discovered a new species of mutant sea creature, which would not surprise me with all the pollution they put in the water nowadays," he said.
i don't blame him. Back about 1971 or 72 I saw what I first thought was a spider on the floor. Turned out it had 6 legs and wing cases so it was an insect and a friend called it a "Blackdown monster". I'd never seen anything like it before. There was no scientific deion until 1986 though a related species, pictured at the link was first described about 1976. Known to some of the locals, unknown to science. And no, it's not poisonous, venomous or aggressive. http://www.mtq.qm.ql...ae#.VFDTHfmUe2E My first thought was it was a mole cricket. Appears to be a separate, but similar species. http://e... [More]
Aha - Arbenol, I think you have nailed it. According to my Singaporean-English translation dictionary, 'flummoxed' is an old Singaporean word that means "transfixed by the beauty of a basket star". So he actually knew what it was all the time and it was a simple miscommunication with the interviewer...
And here's a video of how they move in realtime (it is not speeded up..) - while they are sorta related to the slow old starfish, they move much more like an octopus.. Fascinating creatures, and like I said, harmless. AHHHHHHH Spawn of Cthulu!
All jokes aside, I genuinely have had several brittle stars almost exactly like that one above, and with tentacle spans of about 6" (15cm) crawling all over my hands.. they are incredibly gentle, yet quite fast and also quite dextrous, despite apparently having no eyes. I say 'apparently' as they act exactly like they can see .. because they can! Initially marine biologists thought they used their neurological system to quickly build up a 3d model of their environment from what each tentacle 'felt'... but then they discovered they reacted to the shadows of predators.. It seems they have very c... [More]
Sometimes, the inability/unwillingness of folks to bother reading the thread (or even just the first and last pages..), is beyond my comprehension.. At which point the sarcasm, sadly, kicks in. I should resist, I know..
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