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A dolphin, crocodile or something in between? You’ll never believe that such a creature exists

2016-05-04 , 10:48 am

Last Updated on 2016-05-19 , 1:43 pm

In the past few years, China fishermen have been getting some weird alien-looking fishes out of their nets. In 2015, a villager in Sichuan hauled up a very strange yellow coloured thing of which nobody could identify until now.

Last month, a fisherman in Zhejiang province hauled up a strange unidentifiable creature in the coastal waters near Mount Potala. It looks like a cross bred of a dolphin and a crocodile and looks terrifying and cute all at the same time.

According to Shanghaiist.com, it wasn’t a monster from the deeps like Jurassic World. It turns out that the weird creature is neither a dolphin nor a crocodile and it is definitely not a cross bred of both.

It is a beaked whale which normally lives in the deep sea and hardly ever seen near the surface. A beaked whale is recognized by its two bumps on its lower jaw and the most notifiable feature of this animal is their elongated beaks. They are known as the greatest divers among all mammals and one of the least known group of mammals due to their deep sea habitats, mysterious habits and apparent pretty low in numbers.

Beaked whales belong to the family Ziphiidae, which consisted of 22 species. Out of these 22, only 3 to 4 species are reasonably well-known and they are in fact, subjected to commercial exploitation.

Baird’s and Cuvier’s beaked whales are hunted off the coast of Japan, while the Northern Bottlenose whales were extensively hunted in the northern part of the North Atlantic in late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.

Over the years, these whales are gradually forgotten, and it can be considered a stroke of luck for the fisherman who caught it in his net. It will raise awareness of the species and hopefully stop others from hunting these species from the deep sea. They are practically an endangered species and it is important that we stop hunting these mammals before they go extinct.

For this case, it might be a good idea for the scientists to find out why this particular beaked whale is found so far away from its natural deep sea habitat. We hope that it is just a curious fish who longs to see the surface and that there is no big cause for alarm in the deep sea bed.

Let’s also hope that this particular one will not suffer the fate of its brothers and sisters who were hunted by commercial fishermen out for a big sum of money.

A dolphin, crocodile or something in between? You’ll never believe that such a creature exists

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