The Little Mermaid is my favourite Disney movie, so I’m not sure how to feel after seeing a carcass that looks half-human, half-sea creature washed up on a Queensland beach.
Photos of the mermaid-like skeleton were uploaded to the Marine Biology Facebook page by Bobbi-lee Oates after seeing it ashore in Queensland’s Keppel Sands.
“Wondering if anyone has any idea what it is or who I could possibly get to find out exactly what it is,” Oates wrote on the Facebook post.
Instead of even attempting to explain what this creature’s remains looked like, I’m just going to leave the images below for you to decide.
Side note: Jetpilot is a brand that still exists.
Oates spoke to news.com.au and said she recalled the creature being around two metres long. You know what else is almost two metres long? Me! A human (I think).
“It had a human-shaped skull with an elongated jawline, and hair similar to the colour of a cow or kangaroo, but with hair missing in many places due to decomposition,” Oates told news.com.au.
“It was exactly like a mermaid shape, but hairy, because it seemed to have a tail or limb of some sort.”
Thankfully the internet, as always, is on the case. Random people who are likely not marine biologists have joked about it being a mermaid, with others suggesting it could be a kangaroo or dugong (while still questioning certain features they don’t feel line up — like skull and tail size and shape).
Rob Deaville, a project manager for the UK Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme at the Zoological Society of London told news.com.ay that it “looks like a small cetacean.”
I’m no ordinary girl, but I’d like to live in a world where there’s a question mark around the existence of mermaids.
If only this happened earlier in the year, it would’ve been great marketing for The Little Mermaid live-action remake. No?
Chantelle Schmidt is a freelance writer. You can follow her on Instagram or TikTok.
