Sea animal covered with slimy tendrils will give you Halloween creeps

An “alien” creature washed ashore on a beach in Australia, scaring the wits out of everyone who saw it. Its strange appearance freaked people out.

Vicki Evans, a beachcomber, came across the freaky creature on the Horseshoe Bay in Port Elliott, South Australia, The Advertiser reported. She posted a photo on a community Facebook page and wrote, "I’ve never seen anything quite like this before! Nature never ceases to amaze!"

The animal is unusually lengthy with gelatinous tendrils covering its entire body and several sea shells caught in them like hair beads. It looks slimy with its vermicelli-type tentacles. The photo also shows a dog next to the strange creature and that is enough to tell how huge it is.

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Users commenting on the photo were baffled by the animal. “That might just be the freakiest thing I’ve ever seen!!” one of them wrote, with another gasping at its sheer size, saying, “Wow, it looks long judging by scale of dog."

The alien creature actually turned out to be goose barnacles.

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It is a species of communal crustacean that attaches itself to objects either floating in the sea on wharves and piers or ashore. It is named after a belief among Middle Ages naturalists that they were actually goose eggs.

Goose barnacles are a costly delicacy

The mass of the barnacle cluster shocked the University of South Australia marine ecologist Dr Zoe Doubleday who believes it appears to have "broken off its mothership" and floated ashore.

”I’ve never seen anything like it, and it just must be an old pylon from a jetty or some piece of marine infrastructure that has been in the water for such a long time to grow a dense cluster of barnacles,” the scientist said.

She also clarified that even though the ocean creature resembles oysters and clams, it has a closer relation to lobsters and crabs. The barnacles have small shrimp-like jointed legs inside their shells.

Just like lobsters and crabs, goose barnacles are also a delicacy in some parts of the world. In Portugal and Spain, they are referred to as percebes and served with melted butter.

However, even one serving will burn a hole in your pocket as they are among the most expensive seafood on earth. A pound of goose barnacles costs $125.