A man has been left surprised after catching a fish with human-like teeth and lips.
33-year-old Paul Lore is a fisherman who reeled in a human-like fish after dipping his hook into the waters in Melbourne, Florida, United States.
After pulling the bizarre fish out of the water, Mr Lore quickly noticed the animal’s rows of human-like teeth which the fish uses for grinding shells and barnacles.
Calling his catch “one of the weirdest fish” he has ever caught, the 33-year-old said:
“It has a zebra pattern of coloring and the body is more like a snapper-type fish – very compact but meaty.
“The teeth can only be described as human-like teeth, but upon further inspection you’ll notice they have rows of these teeth like a shark.
“Most of them have two to three rows with very strong bite power – not enough to take a finger but enough to make you never go near the teeth again.”
As it turned out, the fish in question is called sheepshead and is not all that rare around the Atlantic coasts in the States.
“They mainly consume crustaceans, so they need this type of teeth to break them open. Then the shells come out of their gills almost like a filter so they do not consume a lot of the shell,” the fisherman, who released the fish after catching it, added.
“The fish is nicknamed ‘the poor man’s crab’ around my parts. That’s because they are easy to catch and they mainly eat different types of crab and shrimp so they taste like crab meat.
“They are very strong swimmers, as soon as you hook them they swim sideways with a lot of force so even a small one feels like a huge fish.”
While sheepsheads fully develop their teeth in the early stages of their lives, these fish can grow up to 25 inches long and can weigh up to 15 pounds.
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Replaced!