What is This Demon Looking Thing that Washed Up On a Texas Beach?

"The stuff nightmares are made of".

That's exactly the kind of comment a Texas beachgoer received when she asked: "What is this?" referring to a picture she took on the shore of the Bolivar Peninsula. Now, I must warn you, the picture is pretty creepy! Check it out below.

I can't even begin to describe what I'm looking at here! Are those gills? Are those rows of teeth? Is this the shape of the entire fish or are we just looking at pieces of a what used to be a fish? Where's the head? Is that a tail? Which end is up?

The photo was originally shared on a Facebook group page called Bolivar Beachcombers; the group has over 30,000 members. Surely, someone had to have the answer, right?

This picture of the sea creature was enough to get over 150 comments and over 200 reactions- of which the majority were the "WOW" reaction! While many of the comments referred to the creature as a nightmare, or ugly, and some even thought it was something out of "Monsters, INC." one wise commenter explained:

These are the teeth and gills of, PROBABLY, a black drum. You can see the pharyngeal teeth. Black drum have these teeth in the throat to help them crush mollusks, which are part of their diet. This is definitely creepy looking, but it isn't "a creature", it's simply part of a fish that either washed up, or got left after a fisherman cleaned their catch and left it behind as trash.

So those ARE teeth?!

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According to Texas Parks & Wildlife, the Black Drum, also known as a Texas drum, is most "abundant in Texas and is found in all bay and inshore waters and offshore in Gulf waters". Considering the Bolivar Peninsula extends along the Gulf of Mexico, it is possible this nightmare fish is a Black Drum.

Or it could also be a demon.