6 of South Australia’s weird-looking underwater creatures

Don’t freak out, but there are some alien-look­ing crea­tures in South Australia’s marine parks.

It’s always these won­der­ful­ly weird things that spark our imag­i­na­tion. In fact, some of SA’s odd­ball marine crea­tures have even helped shaped movies and TV shows. Think Shark­na­do, The Lit­tle Mer­maid and Aqua­man.

Go on an adven­ture and explore SA marine parks, and see if any of our unusu­al under­wa­ter crea­tures get your cre­ative juices flow­ing. You nev­er know, today’s alien under­wa­ter crea­ture could well be tomorrow’s Hol­ly­wood ani­mat­ed star.

Here are 6 weird crea­tures to look out for in SA’s marine parks:

1. Skele­ton shrimp

Skele­ton shrimp look sim­i­lar to a pray­ing man­tis and behave sim­i­lar­ly too – they wait for long peri­ods of time before snatch­ing their prey. They are minia­ture crus­taceans and live in the shal­low waters of the coastal areas across SA.

Skele­ton shrimps’ claim to fame? They inspired the cof­fee drink­ing worm guys in Men in Black.

2. Sea cucum­ber

Sea cucum­bers are sausage-shaped ani­mals with no skele­ton. They can be found on shal­low reefs around SA. The largest is a red­dish-brown or yel­low­ish-brown sea cucum­ber that grows up to 20 cen­time­tres long and has bumps all over its body.

Did some­one say Jab­ba the Hutt muse?

3. Warty prow­fish

The warty prow­fish lives in the coastal waters of south­ern Aus­tralia and is most­ly found in rocky reefs hid­ing near sponges. They have wart-like bumps and shed their skin to pre­vent a build-up of algae.

It’s a stretch, but some say that the warty prow­fish resem­bles Roz from Mon­sters Inc.

4. Lam­prey

Lam­preys have a toothed, fun­nel-like suck­ing mouth and are native to SA’s coastal and fresh waters such as the Riv­er Mur­ray.

Even though the lam­prey may look-like an aquat­ic vam­pire they pre­fer cold-blood­ed fish, so we humans aren’t on the menu.

Lam­preys are often depict­ed as Hol­ly­wood hor­ror char­ac­ters. There is the Sug­ar Plum Fairy mon­ster from the movie Cab­in in the Woods and Fluke­man from the X‑Files TV show.

5. Spi­der crab

Spi­der crabs are not your nor­mal look­ing crabs. They have long, thin legs and weird body shapes. About 13 species of spi­der crabs have been record­ed in south­ern Aus­tralian waters and can be found in large chaot­ic groups when breed­ing.

Could they have been Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds alien inspiration?

6. Sponge crab

Sponge crabs mould live sponges to their body and hold them in place like colour­ful hats to avoid being seen and smelt by preda­tors. They are com­mon in the shal­low waters across SA’s coast­line, but are dif­fi­cult to spot thanks to their decep­tive head­wear and noc­tur­nal behaviour.

The sponge crab phe­nom­e­non may explain the unlike­ly friend­ship between Mr Krabs and Sponge­Bob SquarePants.

To learn more about the inter­est­ing ani­mals in South Australia’s marine parks down­load the snorkel­ers guide.

This sto­ry was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in Sep­tem­ber 2017.