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| MUSEUM OF NEW ZEALAND TE PAPA TONGAREWA VIA FACEBOOK |
This fish, believed to be a Frogfish, was washed up on the beach at the Bay of Islands in New Zealand.
Holidaymakers Claudia Howse and James Beuvink found the frog-like fish and sent it on to the Museum of New Zealand to discover exactly what it was.
Experts at the Te Papa Tongarewa museum believe it is a rare type of Frogfish and shared pictures of the unusual animal on Facebook.
“This weird creature is likely to be a species of Frogfish, but we won't know until we have a chance to examine it closely,” said the museum in a statement.
“Frogfishes have the fastest bite of any vertebrate. Their mouths expand at the speed approaching a 22 rifle bullet — and that's in a medium 800x denser than air.”
The frogfish has fins on both sides of its body that have evolved to be leg-like and are generally found living on the seabed.
The fish are known to be cannibals and regularly eat shellfish, other ocean dwellers and each other.
They are found in both tropical and subtropical oceans and seas, except the Mediterranean Sea, according to Mirror Online.
