'Stuff of nightmares’: Rare deep-sea shark found in Australia

A fisherman in Australia accidentally discovered a freaky-looking creature that the netizens have called "the stuff of nightmares".

The shark has large bulgy eyes and an awkwardly protruding mouth and teeth. Trapman Bermagui caught the rare fish from  2,133 feet underwater.

An image of the fish was uploaded on social media and it quickly gained traction with everyone talking about it and trying to confirm what it exactly was.

Posted on Facebook on Monday, the post has garnered over 1,000 likes.

One social media user said: "Stuff of nightmares there."

Another jokingly said: "Looks really happy he's just had his braces off so is accentuating the gums and teeth."

A user said that the fish was not really a shark but a "man-made sculptor" or a DNA mix.

Bermagui said however that considering the skin of the creature, it was a shark, "also known as a species of endeavour dog shark".

He said that the animal was common in water below 600 metres and is usually caught in winters.

Dean Grubbs, associate director of research at the Florida State University Coastal and Marine Laboratory told Newsweek that the species seemed to be  Centroscymnus owstoni, also known as the rough skin dogfish.

Grubbs said that he had found "quite a few" in the  Gulf of Mexico and in the Bahamas.