Terrifying mouth with fangs in rock pool, WTF?? Marine biologist help needed so we can sleep again.

[Scrapeagle]

DC and I were at the beach just outside Edinburgh today and we saw something weird and creepy. In a shallow, sandy lagoon (so in the sea at mid tide and high tide), covered by about an inch of water, were 2 small fanged holes.

Each was fingernail size, a sort of squished oval and had a single row of fangs all the way round, quite long, so delicate fangs like a sea urchins spikes. It was filtering water and the hole vanished if we moved over it. We tried to dig it up and the whole thing moved downwards.

WTF was it? It looked a lot like a sarlacc from star wars, but with a single row of long fangs. It's haunting my thoughts. I'd like to know what it is so I can forget the nightmare tentacles in my head. I've looked up sea lamprey and that's not right, they have multiple rows of little bumps, not long fangs.

Can you help? I think there were 2, touching each other. I can't unsee them. Maybe knowing more, putting a name to it, would help?

Was it hagfish?

Omg I don’t know what that is but I am never going in the sea again

Man, those things are weird. I've just been reading that their reproductive activity's poorly understood, but it is theorised that they lay their eggs in sheltered corners of rock pools. They don't have a larval stage, they hatch as mini hagfish.

OP, since the weirdnesses you found were so tiny, you might have actually discovered an elusive hagfish nursery! Some small comfort for the creepiness, maybe?

Sounds like the openings to fanworm tubes (diver here).

They’re so strange … I had never heard of dog them until this evening when they came up in my year 1 DD’s school reading book! WTF?! 🤪🤪

Might find it on here:
https://www.mcsuk.org/our-blue-planet/enjoying-the-ocean/rock-pooling-guide/

Jesus. I just googled it and had to click out again. It's straight out of a horror movie, or stranger things. Do not Google if you are easily scared

A Sea Anemone ?

I seriously regret googling this now. If I have nightmares in blaming this thread 😄

Oh, they're significantly less horrifying ... though I'm a bit freaked by "one or more paired composite eyes scattered on their outer surface".

Diving must be amazing (I can't: sinuses) but I'd waste the experience by getting frozen between fascination and horror every time I encountered underwater life 😂

Me too! I was wholly unprepared.

Oh why oh why did I google hagfish!

Wow. Hagfish are weird. Almost as weird as a lamprey.

Maybe weever fish?

I’m too scared to google hagfish can someone describe for me please 💀

A long penis with fangs.

Could it be one of these? Ragworm?

@Dontlletmedownbrucethere was a picture of it in her reading book - she’s 6! It’s such a weird thing to add into it … a book on materials which can be used to make clothing! Supposedly hagfish produce a slime which contains threads which can then be used to make clothing from 😳

Well this thread is a warning to me not to go anywhere near Scottish rock pools. We don't have those erm definitely not real or I'll have nightmares creatures in the south right?

Bobbit worm?

(always thought it was a rather apt name as it looks like it could 'chop it off' given half a chance. 😂).

Another hapless soul googling hagfish and ruining any chance of sleep tonight 😂

Weever fish don't look like that at all though. They look like....small fish, which is what they are, with a large, spiny dorsal fin. You would just see a few spines sticking out of the sand. Or, more likely, find them with your feet.

But going back to the OP's question....surely they're baby sarlacs?? They don't start off the size of the one in Star Wars! 😆

wish I hadn’t googled, too late now!

@crackofdoom I was thinking around the vibe of op’s description rather than strict sarlac 🤣

I’ll leave this here