The appearance of a mysterious red sea monster on a beach in Australia aroused the interest of thousands of people around the world.
It all seemed like a normal day for Debbie Higgs, who was walking on the Queensland state beach on Monday, but everything changed when she found a big surprise that has caused a worldwide mystery.
Debbie Higgs was the first to see this amorphous mass of reddish color lying in the middle of the beach, showing off its bright and colorful body with a mesmerizing pattern and colors.
The eye-catching creature came in with the tide at Coral Bay on the West Australian coast.
As she approached, she realized that it was some kind of sea monster that she had never seen. Impressed she decided to take some pictures of it and asked her acquaintances on Twitter if they knew what they were.
"I had no idea what it was. It's definitely not a plant. It looks fluffy like a jellyfish. It's 10 inches long. It's cold and it has a lot of smell," Higgs told News Australia.
Higgs took a picture of this mysterious bright red creature and tweeted it. It got tons of retweets and replies with people speculating what it could be.
Noticing the immense reaction generated by her picture, she decided to go back to the ocean, searched for the creature, wrapped it in a towel, and took it to her house. She left it in a bucket of saltwater until expert biologists determined what it was.
The Queensland Museum of Natural Sciences had told that it was difficult to determine what it was without being able to examine it. By looking at the picture, they said that this creature looks like a sea slug,
However, scientists said that it is a species of mollusk called Hexabranchus sanguineus, which is also known as the 'Spanish dancer'.
Hexabranchus sanguineus lives in the depths of the Indian and Pacific Oceans and can grow up to 90cm in length.
The blob-like animal shows off its bright color in a brilliant display underwater, riding on the seafloor.
It swims underwater via undulating whirl like a red skirt of a flamenco dancer, and usually shy away from light, preferring to come out late at night.