New Zealand is often pictured as a land of rolling green hills, snow-capped mountains, and forests straight out of a fantasy film. It’s no wonder the country has been chosen as the backdrop for so many epic movies. But just off its beautiful shores lies a world far less idyllic.
Beneath the waves of New Zealand’s coastal waters lurk some of the strangest—and downright creepiest—creatures on Earth. Fishermen sometimes haul them up by accident, while others wash ashore to the horror (and fascination) of locals. Dead or alive, these bizarre animals are guaranteed to give you chills.
Here are 12 of the weirdest and most unsettling sea creatures found around New Zealand.
At first glance, a salp looks like a drifting brain. In reality, it doesn’t even have one—just a simple nervous system to help it glide through the water while filtering tiny organisms for food. Its translucent body propels itself by sucking in water at one end and pushing it out the other, not unlike a jet engine.
What makes salps truly bizarre is their life cycle. They begin life as a giant chain of connected individuals, each capable of reproducing. Once separated, they live solitary lives, reproducing again asexually before dying. Strange, simple, and eerily alien.
In December 2016, a fisherman walking along Muriwai Beach near Auckland stumbled upon what looked like a sea monster out of a nightmare. Covered in writhing tentacle-like forms, it reeked of decay and drew crowds of curious onlookers.
But the “monster” wasn’t a creature at all. It was a huge piece of driftwood encrusted with goose barnacles—shellfish that attach themselves by long stalks resembling necks. As larvae, they drift on ocean currents until they cement themselves onto floating debris, filtering plankton from the water.
Sometimes even familiar animals become terrifying when washed ashore. In 2013, the rotting carcass of a whale appeared on a beach near Pukehina in the Bay of Plenty. Its jagged teeth and decomposed body left locals wondering if it was some undiscovered sea monster.
Speculation ranged from a “sea crocodile” to a giant eel. Eventually, scientists identified it as a decomposed killer whale (orca). By then, however, the internet had already been captivated by the mystery of a “new marine beast.”
Discovered in the Bay of Islands, this deep-sea oddity looks like a mutant experiment gone wrong. With appendages resembling three legs and a body somewhere between a fish and a reptile, it baffled those who first saw it.
In reality, it’s a type of anglerfish. The “leg-like” fins help it crawl along the seafloor, while a glowing lure on its head draws prey close enough to swallow whole.
Imagine rounding a corner of a pristine beach only to see thousands of jelly-like creatures covering the sand. That’s exactly what happened at Fitzroy Beach in 2017. These creatures, known as Velella velella or “by-the-wind sailors,” are related to jellyfish but harmless to humans.
They float on the ocean surface, using a small sail-like structure to catch the wind. Instead of stinging, they feed by filtering plankton with tiny tentacles, creating a strangely beautiful sight when mass strandings occur.
Known locally as “sea lizards,” these striking blue sea slugs are far more dangerous than their size suggests. In 2017, beaches across Australia and New Zealand were briefly closed after swarms of them appeared in shallow waters.
Their sting is as painful as a bee sting, but what makes them infamous is their diet: they feed on venomous jellyfish, sometimes storing the stinging cells for their own defense. A dazzling creature with a nasty bite.
Looking like a relic from the dinosaur age, the frilled shark is part eel, part shark, and entirely unsettling. With rows of needle-like teeth and gills that flare like frills around its head, it is rarely seen alive, living hundreds of meters below the surface.
Although harmless to humans, its prehistoric appearance has earned it the title of one of the ocean’s ugliest predators.
Don’t let its size fool you. The basking shark, sometimes called the “benthic behemoth,” can grow up to 14 meters long with a mouth wide enough to swallow a person whole. But this giant is harmless, filtering nothing but plankton as it drifts lazily through the ocean.
Despite its peaceful nature, stumbling upon one of these giants can be a terrifying experience.
Few sea creatures inspire as much fear as the colossal squid. In 2007, fishermen near New Zealand’s South Island caught one measuring 6.7 meters long and weighing over a ton.
With its massive tentacles and huge eyes, it’s believed to have inspired legends of sea monsters. Very little is known about its habits, but the specimen is preserved at the Te Papa Museum in Wellington—frozen in ice for visitors to see.
Sometimes called the “living fossil,” the goblin shark looks like something straight out of science fiction. Its long, protruding snout and jaws that snap forward to grab prey give it a nightmarish appearance.
Found at depths below 1,200 meters, it is rarely encountered, but every sighting reinforces its reputation as one of the creepiest sharks in existence.
This deep-sea fish has one of the strangest features in the animal kingdom: a transparent head. Through its see-through dome, you can actually see its brain and upward-facing tubular eyes, which swivel inside its skull.
In 2016, two new species of barreleye were discovered off New Zealand’s coast, proving that the deep ocean still holds countless mysteries.
If you ever saw one of these, you might think it had already been half-eaten. With sagging red flesh and a bloated belly, the flabby whalefish looks like something out of a horror film.
Its red coloration isn’t blood—it’s pigment. In the deep sea, red light doesn’t reach, meaning predators can’t see it. To us, though, the fish looks raw and disturbing, living up to its unsettling name.
New Zealand’s landscapes may be breathtaking, but its seas hide a much darker, stranger world. From jelly-like drifters to ancient sharks and colossal squids, these creatures remind us just how little we know about the deep ocean.
One thing is certain: New Zealand’s waters are as mysterious as they are beautiful.
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