A well known shark fisherman has hooked a rare and incredibly huge deep sea monster off the coast of Miami Beach.
Captain Mark Quartiano, a controversial ship operator who is also known as ‘Mark The Shark’, snared the 800 pound creature and said it ‘looked like a dinosaur’. A massive 14 feet from its head to tail, Quartiano identifies the creature as a hookskate (dactylobatus clarkii), a species of which little is known due to its love for muddy seabeds 1000 feet deep.
However there is a chance the creature may be something else entirely. GrindTV spoke with George H. Burgess from Florida Museum of Natural History, who believes the creature is actually dasyatis centroura, a roughtailed stingray usually growing up to 660 pounds, and packs a mean punch in its venomous tail.
(Image Credit: Instagram/officialmarktheshark)
Whatever it ends up being, one thing is for sure – its huge. After hooking the creature at appxomiately 500 feet deep, Quartiano stated he fought for 4 hours to bring it up to the surface, before snapping the evidence and sending the catch back into the deep.
“It was kind of cool to catch something new for a change,” he said. “When we first saw it we didn’t know what it was.”
Check out the article here at The Huffington Post.
