What The Hell Is This?

[tyyrlym]

Looks like a young hydralisk, part of one anyways.

 

[Truck]

looks like something from the pike family. could be a cod but a bit small

 

[Dad]

It's not a cat or a bird because the spine runs straight out from the back of the skull. Birds & cats have the skull & spine join differently. It looks a bit like a bottom dwelling flatfish, eel, or something similar. By the size of the skull it would be a reasonable size creature whatever it is, (you probably only have 1/3 to ¼ of the animal).
Perhaps send the pics to your local museum and see if they can tell you what it is.
If you had the jaw it might help. Are there any teeth in it? Teeth are good for identifying things.

There aren't any teeth in it, just a clean space where the mouth once was. I would agree with your suggestion of it being some kind of flatfish..

I found it off Brighton Beach so I can't imagine it's anything tropical

 

[england]

true that dad but you know we get a large ammount of leatherback turtles passing our waters, sunfish are now resident in our waters,,,seahorses have been found up the themes river,,,,could be anything, have you got any museums near you or universitys, as its an intresting find, hehe prob is something boring and local, but hey it looks good,

 

[nosoup4you]

Are there holes in the jaw where there once were teeth? I agree with truckasaurus about it looking 'pike-like', but all of the Pike that I have seen have some pretty serious teeth.

 

[Honeythorn]

Not a baby basking shark or something is it? They eat plankton so surely don't have teeth? I'm not sure. Do Basking sharks lay eggs or give live birth? Or perhaps a young dogfish? We get those on UK shores don't we? The skull shape is just not looking very eel like to me somehow. I just keep thinking of either a shark or as others have said, some sort of flat fish like a sole or something. Ask a fisherman? A university or even give the Natural History museum a quick call or send them an email with a picture and ask if they have anything like it in their collections?

 

[Dad]

It's an idea. There aren't any holes where the teeth 'supposedly' should be..

 

[three-fingers]

I think it's the remains of a bird, showing the area around the pelvis...I'm not great on bird anatomy though, don't know what all the bit's are called, or what species this could be, may have a look on the net later .

 

[Dad]

I think it's the remains of a bird, showing the area around the pelvis...I'm not great on bird anatomy though, don't know what all the bit's are called, or what species this could be, may have a look on the net later .

I can see the resemblance, but the 'Spinal Cord' doesn't seem to attach like a bird's would.

 

[gooner4life]

I found a skeleton of some sort of fish on a southern england beach. It's probably very common but can anyone tell me what species this is? The pics are below but some of the spine/tail is missing. It's approximately 24cm/ 8 and a half inches long and smells slightly
Thanks

Hi Dad,
I think that the skull has the jawbone missing, so it will look very different than if it where complete. This is what may be misleading. If you can imagine a jawbone added to the skull it is almost surely a fish. As to what type I am not sure but my guess would be bottom dwelling scavanger of some kind.

 

[NottsFishy]

To me its either a Conger eel due to the back of the head being arrow like i have caught eels before and have seen many with pointy heads when viewed from above.
But to be 100% sure i would send it to a local museum or even take it down to a local fish market they deal with more fish than anyone so i am sure they would have seen bones like it before

 

[jourdy288]

I'm not an expert either, but I don't think it's a fish skeleton. The skull is flat on top and seems to have nostrils, they're most visible in the first picture. Whatever it is may have fallen in the water, been picked clean by scavengers, then washed ashore.

Fish have nostrils too...

Yes, but the nostrils are just flat pits with nerves, there's nothing in the skull that would indicate nostrils. I must say, though, that does not belong to a fish! I really think it belonged to an endotherm, that cannot be a fish!

 

[Dorkhedeos]

Looks like a young hydralisk, part of one anyways.

Haha, good one man, the head does kinda look like it though.

 

[CFC]

Looks like it could be from a common dogfish

 

[andywg]

Looks like it could be from a common dogfish

Aren't dogfish elasmobranches though (as in no trus bones)?