Naval officials from Portofero, a town on the island of Elba (Italy), recently discovered a fish floating on the beach. They certainly pulled out of the water an animal with the body of a shark and the face of a pig. Very soon, several rumors spread that he was a kind of converter, reports an article in the Mirror. But it is not.

Specialists were able to identify the species with a flat nose and two dorsal fins. It is actually an Oxynotus centrina, a very rare and endangered angular rough shark.

Sea creatures are on the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List, which is the most comprehensive list of the overall conservation status of the species. Experts have never seen such a shark before, because it usually prefers to spend more than 700 meters above the surface.

One specialist explained to our British colleagues that if this species is called “pigfish”, it is not only because of its appearance. When it comes out of the water, it makes a kind of growl like the cry of a ubiquitous mammal.