A strange photo of an unknown marine animal taken by Scottish tourist Harvey Robertson on a boat cruise off the coast of Parga has made international new s. The photo taken in sea caves shows a strange creature in a snapshot taken while Robertson was trying to capture the unusual color of the water. The grey creature seems to pop out of the water and then disappears under the greenish hue.
Teams of biologists packed their bags to study the chimera, but it was Dr. Darren Naish of the National Oceanography Center at the University of Southampton that may have revealed the creature’s real identity. He believes that the skin sample biopsy of the creature would reveal high concentrations of polyvinyl chloride.
Naish told Discovery News “The object never quite made sense as a live animal – what’s with that round black marking identified by many as an ‘eye,’ and why is there another hole near the tip of what looks like a snout? And where are the flippers or fins? I then remembered seeing extremely similar features in curved boat fenders. These vinyl structures (there are many different types) fit over the gunwales and sides of boats and protect them from dock walls and so on—they often have a shiny look that recalls the skin of animals like dolphins, and this feature obviously made people think that the object looked especially like an animal.”
