Visitors were warned not to swim after the two-metre-long mystery predator was glimpsed lurking in the waters of Guangzhou. An eyewitness told local reporters that when he first saw the back of the fish sticking out of the water, it looked like a turtle’s back. But as it revealed its intimidating maw, it appeared to resemble a snake.
The creature has since been identified as an alligator gar, a large species native to North and Central America.
The fish was spotted on February 9 at the Baiyun Lake Park in the city of Guangzhou.
Song Yunchang, the head of the park’s security team, told Guangzhou Daily: “We had already been made aware of the existence of the strange fish before the 9th, but it had shown a very little part of its body out of the water, therefore we had not been able to identify it.
Speaking to Chinese video news site Pear, one security guard described: “The back of the [strange fish] looked like that of a turtle and was black.
“Afterwards, it showed its head and it looked like a snake’s head.”
The alien fish was described as “ferocious” and a “killer in the water” by local media and some reports even suggested it could destroy the ecosystem by “eating every living creature”.
Workers at the park suspected the alligator gars had swum into the lake from the Pearl River when a reservoir gate was lifted in 2013.
Staff swiftly installed warning signs around the lake instructing people not to swim.
Earlier this month, thousands of headless fish with their bladders torn out mysteriously washed ashore in Germany.
In bizarre footage posted by German publication Focus, a blanket of dead fish is seen covering 150 square meters of the harbour in the small town of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
Birds appear to pick at the growing pile of the decapitated fish, while specialists appear to scoop some out of the water.
Many of the fish are missing their heads while nearly all appear to have had their bladders torn out.