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'Scary' creature with human-like teeth baffles farmer


This bizarre looking creature with human-like teeth has alarmed local farmers who discovered it.

A woman working in a rice field near the town of San Javier, in the north-eastern Argentina province of Santa Fe, saw and photographed the strange creature.

Maria Julia Candotti said it had a long eel-like body with wrinkled skin and a mouthful of ugly human-like teeth.

“This beautiful travelled 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 wrote on Facebook.

Baffling creature with teeth baffles Argentina farmer
A strange reptile with human-like teeth was spotted by a local in San Javier, in the Argentinian province of Santa Fe. Source: CEN/Australscope

The sight of the strange creature shocked online commentators such as Maria Celeste Christen who described it as “disgusting and scary”.

Experts later identified it from the photographs as a South American lungfish (epidosiren paradoxa) which can breathe air but is usually found in swamps and slow-moving waters.

Pablo Scarabotti, a scientist with the National Institute of Lumnology of Conicet, said the species – also known as the American mudfish – was unique to South America.

Baffling creature with teeth baffles Argentina farmer
Experts have been identified the creature as a South American lungfish. Source: CEN/Australscope

“They build small caves in the mud where they go into and create a kind of cocoon where they can stay for two or three years without needing to go to the surface,” he said.

The South American lungfish’s huge teeth are needed to break the shells of crabs and snails which make up a major part of their diet.

Scientists know relatively little about the South American lungfish which is found only in the Amazon, Paraguay and lower Parana River basins in South America.

– Australscope