Diver encounters ghostly transparent sea creature [Video]

Incredible footage shows the moment a diver encounters a ghostly eel-like creature that is almost totally transparent.

Experts are divided over the bizarre seabeast spotted by Amy Wainman, 36, off Simon’s Town near Cape Town in South Africa.

In Amy’s footage, the creature is seen undulating through the water, its transparent body seemingly devoid of any organs.

The diver said the ‘amazing, magical’ creature was unlike anything she’d ever seen.

Incredible footage shows the moment Amy Wainman, 36, encounters a ghostly eel-like creature with an almost completely transparent body off the coast of Cape Town in South Africa’s Western Cape

‘When I first saw it, it almost looked like some floating plastic,’ she said. ‘But then it started swimming. It was like a dancing, clear ribbon.

‘I had no idea what it was, I had never even seen a picture of one before.’

Some experts have suggested that the footage shows an eel larva.

Bradley Stevens, a retired marine science professor, formerly of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, said it seemed to be at the end of its larval stage.

He said: ‘Its size and location suggest that it is nearing the end of its migration from the mid-oceanic spawning grounds, and will soon become a normal-shaped juvenile eel.’

‘When I first saw it, it almost looked like some floating plastic,’ she said. ‘But then it started swimming. It was like a dancing, clear ribbon’

Diver Amy said the ‘amazing, magical’ creature was unlike anything she’d ever seen

In Amy’s footage, the creature is seen undulating through the water, its transparent body seemingly devoid of any organs

But Kevin Kocot, an associate professor at The University of Alabama specialising in invertebrate zoology, believes it’s actually a ‘very unusual’ type of jelly.

He said: ‘Some baby eels have larvae called leptocephalus larvae that look superficially very similar.

‘But if you look closely, they have a head and mouth at one end whereas this animal’s mouth is in the middle of the body.

‘This is a cestum veneris, a very unusual comb jelly or ctenophore.

‘Most comb jellies are more-or-less rounded in shape and swim with ‘combs’ – rows of cilia – but this species (and one other in the family) swims by undulating muscles like a ribbon.’

‘I had no idea what it was, I had never even seen a picture of one before,’ said Amy (pictured). Some experts have suggested that the footage shows an eel larva

Dr Kocot said that the creature, better known as a Venus girdle, survives on a diet of ‘various planktonic animals like little crustaceans and fish fry’.

He said: ‘This one looks like it has a mouth full of food, but I can’t make out what it’s got from the video.’

He added that they are safe to touch, though not to eat, and that they reproduce by laying many tiny eggs.

For Amy, who lives in Cape Town, the experience was one a kind.

‘It was the first and last time I have ever seen one,’ she said.

‘It was something very special to see; I have snorkelled all over the world so it was great to see something so cool in my hometown. I hope I will see one again someday.

‘It was an unusual day of snorkelling as we actually saw several different types of comb jellies that we had never seen and have not seen since.’