Strange things are in the water of Texas. The Padre Island National Seashore shared a picture of a strange creature that washed ashore on their official Facebook page. The picture was originally snapped by a park visitor who was much like the ark officials was trying to figure out the species of the strange snake looking creature. Their was a back and forth about whether it was a snake or an eel. Check out the post below. What do you think?
Mystery Animal Monday!
A visitor sent us this picture of a mystery creature washed up on the beach. Initially, we thought it might be a Texas blind snake which look very similar to earthworms and often show up when their habitat floods. Given all the coastal flooding that has been occurring, we thought this might be a pretty good guess.
However, the more we looked at this picture, the more the body structure seemed more like that of an eel. We discovered that there are a type of eel known as snake-eels. These are also known as burrowing eels and often hide in mud or sand to catch their prey, which is normally small fish or crustaceans. Sometimes they can mimic the coloring of venomous sea snakes to deter predators and are often washed up by large storms.
So after endlessly researching eels and snake eels that might live in the Gulf of Mexico on the Texas coast, we have concluded that we still don't know exactly what this mystery creature might be. We're sticking with snake-eel, what do you think it might be?
Photo: Mystery creature resembling a snake or eel on the beach
Photo credit: S. Garcia