Cryptomundo » What Is It?

What Is It?

Posted by: Loren Coleman on November 28th, 2006

What is it?

Strange Thing

This was published on November 14, 2006, in Victoria, Australia’s South Gippsland Sentinel Times.

This thing was caught off the extreme southern coast of Australia. South Gippsland is a fertile agricultural area renowned for its prime cattle and dairy produce as well as a commercial fishing industry. Wonthaggi is located 132 kms southeast of Melbourne via the South Gippsland and Bass Highways, in the Bass Coast Shire of Gippsland, Victoria, Australia. The town, known originally for its coal mining, is now the regional service center for tourism, beef and dairy industries, with a population of approximately 6,000.

Thanks to Dean Harrison for sharing this with Cryptomundo.

Random Posts

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 28th, 2006 at 10:15 am and is filed under Artifacts, Breaking News, CryptoZoo News, Cryptozoology, Forensic Science. You can follow responses via our RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is not allowed.

Spread the Word!

del.icio.us Digg Furl Reddit StumbleUpon Help

Similar Phenomena:

34 Responses to “What Is It?”

mjmurphy responds: November 28th, 2006 at 10:35 am
looks a bit like those beasties in Stephen Jay Gould’s Book Wonderful Life”. For example.

Of course, it can’t really be that.
hagz responds: November 28th, 2006 at 10:44 am
I love it; they find some new species every other week.
jayman responds: November 28th, 2006 at 11:31 am
Maybe it should be “What Was It”… it looks like the decayed remains of something to me.
fuzzy responds: November 28th, 2006 at 11:35 am
WOW, what a great reference, mjmurphy!

If the “Land Down Under” can support the likes of thylacine, kangaroo and platypus, perhaps the “Ocean Down Under” can still contain Anomalocaris!
oldbutnotstupid responds: November 28th, 2006 at 11:59 am
Fuzzy we are thinking in the same time frame but my thoughts went toward Opabinia. If this is real trilobites and anomalocaris may be possible as well what a beautiful thought. This would make a Coelacanth look like a modern gold fish
rifleman responds: November 28th, 2006 at 12:28 pm
after googling both, opabinia has my vote.
jstar responds: November 28th, 2006 at 12:41 pm
Opabinia only grew to about 3 inches, plus an inch for the proboscis. This would be a bit big.
Riptor responds: November 28th, 2006 at 12:42 pm
I’m going to take a stab in the dark and say that to me it looks like the decayed remains of an Opabinia.

I don’t think it really looks like an Anomalocaris, but maybe if it’s very decayed, it’s possible.
BigfootBeliever71 responds: November 28th, 2006 at 1:10 pm
Is what the fisherman holding in his hand a lure or part of this thing? Not only that, the bottom half is cut off, so we can’t see all of it.

Nonetheless, it is quite interesting.
andy_howey responds: November 28th, 2006 at 1:41 pm
It looks like a frayed piece of celp snagged on a fish hook to me.
starthinker responds: November 28th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
Google Sea Pen.
MattBille responds: November 28th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
The structure does not seem to make sense as an animal. What looks like a head seems way out of proportion to the actual body (that is, the body mass without the legs or whatever those side extensions are). It looks, at first glance, like either a lure or a small fish (whichever it is the guy is holding) is snagged on some kind of odd-looking seaweed, and the guy thought the whole assemblage would make a fun picture. I’m far from certain, though.
daledrinnon responds: November 28th, 2006 at 2:01 pm
I think it’s a sea pen or Pennatulid, for which compare Ivan Sanderson’s drawing in Investigating the Unexplained, figure 39 on page 263 (the photograph being plate XXIII). The photo in the plate is evidently dried and shrivelled compared to this one.
Loren Coleman responds: November 28th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
Yes, exactly, starthinker & Dale, I thought it looked familiar!

See here.
Tobar responds: November 28th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
It looks like a giant Artemia Nyos aka a giant Sea-Monkey!
mjmurphy responds: November 28th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
Actually, it does look like a sea pen. Mind you, there were apparently some of those found in the Burgess Shale as well. See here for example. The bulby thing would presumably anchor it to the sea-bottom.
Ceroill responds: November 28th, 2006 at 4:48 pm
Fascinating, whatever it is. At this time I am agreeing it is most likely a Sea Pen.
RockerEm responds: November 28th, 2006 at 5:18 pm
Very interesting Loren! I must say personally I do believe that these creatures do exist just from the witnesses alone. So many have come forward, all with a similar story and description. >Emily
kittenz responds: November 28th, 2006 at 5:42 pm
It doesn’t really look much like an animal or the remains of an animal… are we sure it’s even organic? They call it a strange “thing” but do they know for sure that it is part of an animal? Could it be some kind of seed pod or other vegetation, or even some kind of plastic trash? It does sort of look like cartilage of some kind but it’s hard to judge because of the low picture quality.
cor2879 responds: November 28th, 2006 at 5:43 pm
Thanks Loren for posting the sea pen picture. After seeing that I am forced to agree that the thing in the picture does appear to be a sea pen. Of course it would be much easier to identify if we could somehow get hold of a hi-res color photo of the thing.
plesiosaurus responds: November 28th, 2006 at 5:50 pm
Thanks contributors - I think we’ve resolved the issue in favour of Sea Pen.

I was the one who cut the article out of the local paper and sent it to Dean for scanning and posting on this board.

I’ll now be able to pass on the details to the paper and hopefully the original finder.

As to whether it’s a new species or has already been described, I’ll have to leave that to the invertebrate zoologists.
joppa responds: November 28th, 2006 at 6:03 pm
Sea pen maybe, any other photos of this critter ? Looks plant-like to me. Of course many sea beasties are phasmids.
acquiredsource responds: November 28th, 2006 at 6:06 pm
I’m on the Sea Pen boat as well.

So to speak.
kittenz responds: November 28th, 2006 at 6:49 pm
Maybe Sea Pen. I would like to see more pictures of it especially closeups from different angles and sections, for comparison.
youcantryreachingme responds: November 28th, 2006 at 7:46 pm
Nice find. Certainly something unusual. The Opabinia suggestion, above, was interesting too - although not the best match.

Would love to see the colour photo if anyone can source it!

Chris.
john5 responds: November 29th, 2006 at 12:18 am
Sure does look like some species of Sea Pen. Apparently these soft corals show up as fossils in Cambrian Shale as well. Could this catch be a one of the Sea Pens found during the Cambrian era?

Here are 2 examples of contemporary Sea Pens from Wikipedia:

Example 1

Example 2

These soft corals plug into the ocean sediment and filter feed the water currents. They can unplug from the bottom and move to better feeding grounds.

Here is a notion that dawned on me as I was looking at the pictures. Please be forewarned as it is a bit of a tangent:

Given that corals are a collection of individual polyps, does a capability of sea pens to unplug from the seabed and move about in the water show us a group of animals making a decision agreed upon by at least a majority of the individual polyps within each Sea Pen? Maybe this is an example of a level of collective consciousness not usually attributed to these ‘lower forms’ or ’structurally simple’ forms of life!

No doubt that some form of chemical stimuli are involved in the animals relocation process. Whenever we are hungry it is a chemical stimuli that initiates the process. However our conscious mind is involved when we decide when and where to seek food and how to seek it.

To test for this ability in Sea Pens would be very difficult indeed. It is far easier to measure chemicals for stimuli than to measure thought. Especially in polyps!

It really is astonishing to learn that these animals have been around our seas for so long. We can really take a lesson from them in just how successful a group can be when they all get along!
raisinsofwrath responds: November 29th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
It looks like a type of Pennatulacea to me also.
raisinsofwrath responds: November 29th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
To add an Opabinia does not have a bulb such as prominently displayed in the picture.
seethingcauldron responds: November 29th, 2006 at 4:09 pm
Does anyone know any more information? What depth was he fishing at?
MNSRaptor responds: November 29th, 2006 at 5:23 pm
It’s definitely a sea-pen (pennatura phosphorea), normally found in cold water areas down to 100m depth. Name of warm water species: sibulan negros.

Kind of coral, probably imported by sticking under a boat in minor form (polyp).

greets
CryptoGoji responds: November 29th, 2006 at 7:55 pm
My vote goes for a Sea Pen. The shapes look too much alike for it to be anything else.
oldbutnotstupid responds: November 30th, 2006 at 6:23 am
Size cannot be used to judge creatures known only from the fossil record. Trilobites were once thought to be only tiny, but there are examples found recently that are bigger than a house cat. Anomalocaris was also a small Burgess shale creature until some ranging up to 6 feet have been found in China and the USA.
oldbutnotstupid responds: November 30th, 2006 at 6:27 am
I think we can call this one solved SEA Pen it is no doubt nice work people
MrInspector responds: November 30th, 2006 at 3:08 pm
Photos? Ummm, it occurs to me that this is in hand, at least at the time of the photograph. What happened to it?

Leave your comments

You must be logged in to post a comment.

|Top | Content|

Random Posts

Spread the Word!

Random Posts

34 Responses to “What Is It?”

Leave your comments

Main Page

Join The Search

Mystery Pages

Login

Advertisement

Syndication

Donate Today

The Beyond

Advertisement

microsoft window 2000 professional oem software

microsoft office 2003 oem,

cheap software downloads,

The Logo Creator MEGA pak 3.6;

microsoft window 2000 professional oem software

software oem cd line business;

iCorrect EditLab Pro 4.52,

software discount oem?

adobe cs2 photo shop total training

oem software bundle

"Buy cheap PhotoShop CS 2"

microsoft office 2003 oem,

microsoft window 2000 professional oem software

oem software bundle

software oem cd line business;

inkjet definition oem software

adobe cs2 photo shop total training

"locate software oem files"

iCorrect EditLab Pro 4.52,

adobe any cs2 from photo photo shop shop upgrade version

"how to activate reget deluxe"

microsoft office 2003 oem,

"locate software oem files"

software discount oem?

adobe cs2 photo shop total training