An aquarium is a perfect place to have your eyes opened to the beauty of marine life.
But it’s not all seahorses and manta rays at Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, USA – there’s also big fleshy fish that look like penises.
One visitor was caught off guard when one of the phallic fish swam up beside her, displaying its uncanny and quite frankly disgusting resemblance to male genitalia.
Stephanie Walen did what any of us would do and took loads of pictures before sharing them online. The 32-year-old grocery worker said she was subsequently inundated with thousands of messages of disbelief.
She said: “People were so flabbergasted and some quite mortified by my photos, I had thousands of people asking whether it’s a penis or a c**kfish.
“The huge aquarium area is an amazing tunnel exhibit called ‘Passages of the Deep’, filled with different ocean habitats where you will spot sharks, rockfish, kelp forests, stingrays, etc.
“I happened upon this amazingly confusing rockfish showing itself to the aquarium guests near the glass.”
Yep turns out it’s a rockfish, not a c**kfish, even though it clearly looks more like a c**k than a rock.
But if you found this d**k fish a bit disgusting, I suggest looking away now before I start telling you about the thousands of ‘penis fish’ that washed up on a beach in California in December.
It’s thought the strange marine animals – known as penis fish or innkeeper worms – washed ashore on Drakes Beach on the Pacific US coast after they were dragged from the depths by a storm.
Basically, the reason it’s called an innkeeper worm is that they live in small underground burrows that are u-shaped, which become homes for other creatures once the worm leaves.
They’re about 10 inches long, and – as you can see – they’re f***ing gross. Particularly if they’re washed up by the thousands on a beach.
Biologist Ivan Parr discovered the penis fish on 6 December last year, a few days after a particularly violent storm.
In Bay Nature, Parr wrote: “The same phenomenon has been reported over the years at Pajaro Dunes, Moss Landing, Bodega Bay, and Princeton Harbor.
“I’ve heard my share of imaginative theories from beachcombers, such as flotsam of a wrecked bratwurst freighter.
“In truth, these are living denizens of our beaches rudely, yet also mercifully, mostly called ‘fat innkeeper worms.”
More disgustingly, they are considered a delicacy in Korea and China, where they are eaten with sesame oil and gochujang.
Yum.
