This bizarre decaying creature washed up on a beach on Simberi Island, Papua New Guinea. What the hell is it?
James Cook University environmental scientist Helen Cook said the beast appears to be a marine animal but “after that it is anyone’s guess.”
From LiveScience:
Sascha Hooker, a marine mammal expert at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, narrowed it down further. “It looks like a very decomposed cetacean to me,” she told Live Science. Cetaceans, or whales and dolphins, are known to turn this color when their skin falls off, she added[…]
Other experts also suggested it could be one of the pudgy marine mammals [a Dugong, or “sea cow,”], which have previously inspired stories of mermaids. “My best estimate is that it might be a Dugong,” said Jens Currie, chief scientist of the Pacific Whale Foundation in Hawaii. Based on what’s left of the head, it looks too wide to be a cetacean, he added. And “the amount of blubber also indicates a marine mammal and not a shark,” Currie said.
More photos at the New Irelanders Only post on Facebook.
