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?

A slithering long slimy penis with fangs

5 minutes ago I was blissfully unaware of hagfish…

There are filter feeding clams that might fit the description. Two together would suggest an inhalant and exhalant siphon. Try Google for images of Mya arenaria the sand paper. Sand mason worms (Lanice conchilega) have strands on the tubes together look like filaments but wouldn't move.

I see you've met my ex.

Oh christ i swim there

Sand gaper, not sand paper, or look at images of surface clams, ( scientific genus Spisula spp.)

Surf clams, not surface. Ffs, I will learn to bloody proof read.

‘Sometimes known as snot snakes’. Hagfish not getting much help there from the rebranding crew.

Ragworm?...... great fishing bait 👍

Sounds like a bobbit worm possibly, scrolled past a video of them earlier, funnily

Eeewwwww

Oh @crackofdoom best comment ever!!

Ecrire
A slithering long slimy penis with fangs

I see you've met my ex.

million of weird things in the sea
i dont go in anymore,first be cause the water is so dirty now anywhere.
used to dive even search and rescue .things became strange when meet a 28ft
catfish in a manmade lake.it ate the bottom of fishman.managed able to take the top of him so knew who it was.too many large ones and caught 4 over 15ft
gave them to the local natives can leave them to rot or draw bears coyotes

OP, which beach near Edinburgh, please?

I need to know if my Summer trip is ruined.

Thank you all for sharing my nightmares, but not sure we've found it yet. My head is reeling with the terrors of the rock pool though, eeeuw.

It/they were flush with the sand surface, and a little like a horrific inversion of the sandworm (which is pretty and I have seen before). It was a small muscular roundish sphincter with a single ring of spines or teeth which pointed inwards, leaving a tiny actual hole in the middle. The hagfish and lamprey seem to have teeth at all angles and not an even distribution of delicate points (never sleeping again BTW, hagfish are something I can't unsee).

Thank you for sharing my quest! I like the in/out pair of filters suggestion as that suggest there was just one whatever-it-was. Beach was Longniddry, very nice until that point.

I'm seriously regretting opening this thread now.

Is Gerry Durrell still alive? He’d know.

Gerald Durrell is not still alive but David Attenborough is …

However, look, you’re a long way from Australia so it’s not as if it wants to kill you. You’re quite safe.

Was it big enough to take your toe off?

Baby Loch Ness Monsters. If it's a family outing, watch out for the parents.

Did you find a Seamouse?