A gruesome specimen of… something has washed up on a California beach.
With its long claws, pointed teeth and face frozen in a snarl the mystery creature was quite a fearsome sight to behold.
The animal was found near a drain washout near Stearns Wharf in Santa Barbara, KEYT reports.
This creature was found washed up on a Santa Barabara beach
No one has been able to identify the remains, though some non-experts have given it a go.
Michael Curtis told ABC 3: “I’d say it looks like a combination of a seal and dog with fangs dried up, potentially.”
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While Josh Curtis remarked: “To me it looks like the remnants of a dinosaur… like a dog but ancient.” One man reportedly called the news station to say the creature is a black bear.
The animal’s appearance is reminiscent to that of the so-called Beast of Tenby, which was found washed up on the shores of Pembrokeshire in Wales, last year.
The 'Beast of Tenby'
Remnants of brown hair on its long skull, its bloodless lips pulled back in a terrifying snarl, the long-toothed creature was found on Tenby's South Beach by dog walker Peter Bailey.
The 27-year-old told his local paper: "Immediately I thought it was a horse but it had claws like a bear and a body of a pig. Surprisingly it didn't smell."
The nightmarish-looking creature, which according to Bailey, made his dog "howl" is not dissimilar to the hairless creatures which have washed up on the beaches of New York and the Hamptons.
The nightmarish-looking creature
Dubbed the "Manhattan Monster", many have suggested the creature below was a gargantuan rat, or the remains of a roasted pig tossed into the waters which surround the city.
The distended snout of this creature is made more eerie by the five humanoid fingers at the end of each of its legs.
Some have suggested the new creature is related to the Montauk Monster, a hairless beast that washed up on the beach in the Hamptons area of New York in 2008, leaving its well-heeled residents too scared to swim.
Some believed the Montauk Monster was a hoax