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Marine scientists have been left scratching their heads after an unidentified sea creature washed up on a remote beach in Wales last week.
So far, experts have been unable to determine what the faceless, decomposing creature actually is, although scientists are now looking into whether it is a basking shark.
The discovery was made on Broad Haven South Beach in Pembrokeshire, Wales, with Marine Environmental Monitoring called in to investigate.
“Due to the ongoing risk posed by COVID we have limited the amount of strandings we attend to only the more unusual ones,” the organisation said.
“We got a call to a very large blob that had washed up on Broad Haven South beach.
“Due to the size of it we believed that it could be a whale.
“Also, within one of the pictures we had been provided it looked like there was a possible large roll of something within the stomach. Due to this we decided to attend.
“On arriving, it became clear that it was not a whale and instead some form of large fish – around 7m in length.
“Also, the thing that we thought was a large roll of something turned out to be just one of its vertebrate.”
The scientists from the environmental group said “all evidence currently points to it being a basking shark”.
“We have taken several photos of key parts and taken some samples so that we can try and confirm that it is a basking shark,” the organisation added.
According to commenters on the organisation’s Facebook page, the potential basking shark is the second to wash up on a Welsh beach in the past few months.
“We did try and find the one at Newport to take samples but failed to locate it due to it being taken out by the tide and deposited in different locations each day,” the marine organisation said.
Another basking shark washed up on Newport Beach in Wales in late December last year.
Basking sharks are found in waters along the British coast line however the organisation said it was rare for one to wash up in Wales.
Basking sharks are the world’s second largest shark species with adults growing to around 8m in length.
The only shark species bigger than basking sharks are whale sharks. Both animals are filter feeders and have large mouths to help them eat.
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