A Florida fisherman has caught an enormous 14-foot deep-sea creature so old it has barnacles on it.

The 800-pound rarely-seen beast was caught in the waters off Miami Beach and the fish was so rare it was like ‘a dinosaur’.
Captain Mark Quartiano, a charter boat operator who also goes by ‘Mark the Shark’, posted a picture of the Dactylobatus clarkii, a deep sea species also referred to as ‘hookskate’ or ‘fingerskate’, in an Instagram photo he posted over the weekend.

Catch of a lifetime: The 800-pound rarely-seen stingray-like skate fish was caught in the waters off Miami Beach. The fishermen said it was so rare it was like 'a dinosaur'

Ancient animal: The skate fish, which lives in muddy waters as deep as 1,000 feet, was so old it had barnacles all over it, say the fishermen who caught it

The monster inhabits muddy sea depths of up to 1,000 feet – this one was caught in waters of about 500 feet deep, Quartiano said.
‘I’ve caught one like it before, but never that size, not in the last 30 years I’ve been doing this,’ Quartiano told ABC News. ‘It’s a very rare fish. It’s like a big gigantic whipping stingray. It’s a dinosaur.’

'Very rare': Captain Mark 'Mark the Shark' Quartiano, a charter boat operator, said he's never caught a skate fish that size before in the 30 years he's been fishing

Mysterious: Not much is known about the deep-sea creature other than that it inhabits muddy sea depths of up to 1,000 feet

Mega monster: An 18-foot oarfish was discovered by a woman snorkelling off the coast of Catalina Island, California, on October 13. It took 16 people to drag it ashore

Earthquake warning? The two oarfish sightings prompted fears that an earthquake was coming as the bottom-dwelling fish are more sensitive to seismic shifts, according to scientists

DAILY MAIL