Fishermen have been left baffled after catching a transparent 'alien' creature with huge claws.
The shocked fisherman reeled in the weird looking sea creature - which is thought to be part of the species that inspired the Alien movie.
The video, which is captioned "Tell me this is not an alien", was posted on social media and features an odd like creature with a small, transparent, jelly-like barrel-shaped outer layer.
It is unclear where exactly the clip was shot but the habitat of the species, called Phronima, roam freely in the open waters across the globe, except polar regions, Daily Star reported.
In the clip, the confused fisherman with a US accent, squeezes the outer jelly layer of the animal, revealing a beastly clawed figure inside.
The two components are separate, with the beastie inside actually acting as a parasite in a host, which it may or may not have killed itself.
The Phronima break free of the sea floor and advantage of another sea creature, the Salp, to survive in the open water, according to parasite expert Katie O'Dwyer, writing for The Conversation.
Katie says salps are barrel-shaped, gelatinous zooplankton which drift throughout oceans - and the Phronima climbs inside the 'barrel' of the Salp to create a makeshift home.
Phronima carves away the insides of the Salp with its huge claws, to leave an empty barrel structure.
The species should be considered as a parasitoid rather than a parasite because it actively kills its host, O'Dwyer points out.
In late 2020, several Phronima washed up on Streedagh beach, Sligo on the Atlantic coast of Ireland after the huge swells caused by Hurricane Epsilon.
Melinda Swann, a freelance ecologist in Sligo, wrote in the Sligo Champion: "The first time they were recorded in Ireland was back in 1985 by the marine biologist Dr Dan Minchin a long time friend of our family.
"These crustaceans certainly capture the imagination, as HR Geiger must have thought!"
It is widely thought that the specimen was the inspiration for HR Geiger’s drawings for Ridley Scott's 1979 movie Alien.
