A strange and “scary” creature with human-like teeth was found in a town in northeastern Argentina, baffling local farmers and residents.
A woman working in a rice field near San Javier, in the Argentinian province of Santa Fe, spotted the bizarre fish and posted photos on Facebook last week.
These fish typically stay very close to the surface of the water. In times of drought, they can burrow in the mud up to 50 cm to avoid drying out.
Maria Julia Candotti said the creature had a long eel-like body but with wrinkled skin and a mouthful of ugly human-like teeth, according to the Daily Mail.
“This handsome one traveled down the river to go into the rice field.. we do not know what it is, but it is the second one we have found… be careful,” she posted on Facebook.
Experts later identified the creature from photos as the South American lungfish (epidosiren paradoxa), a species that lives primarily in the Amazon river basin.
According to the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology’s Animal Diversity Web, the South American lungfish has a long, slender body, similar to a salamander’s, and can grow up to 125 centimeters in length.