The Italian sailors pulled the nets and got the shark on deck.
In the next minute, most of the team demanded to release the creature back into the water: the shark’s head was as if from another animal.
Fishermen managed to catch a strange creature near the small island of Elba.
The shark was already caught almost at the pier, which also surprised the sailors – usually, predators stay further from the coast.
Outwardly, the creature resembled a disproportionately fat shark.
Its face was similar to a pig’s head, forcing the fishermen to release their prey. Many felt that they were dealing with a strange mutant.
The sailors managed to take a few pictures and showed them to the local staff of the aquarium.
He quickly figured out the situation. As it turned out, the fishermen caught not a mutant, but an extremely rare fish.
“This is the Oxynotus centrina. It is not clear how it got into shallow water, centrins stay all their lives at a depth of 700-800 meters,” said Mario Bertolucci, an employee of the aquarium.
Ordinary centrins are listed in the Red Book. The fishermen were lucky that they managed to release their prey back into the ocean.