A group of Aussie adventurers have shared the terrifying moment they stumbled across a ‘creepy’ fish during a camping trip on a remote island.
Cam Wild and his friends discovered the Black Jawfish while exploring mud flats at night in Western ‘s Pilbara region in the state’s northwest.
‘That is psycho. That is the creepiest looking thing I’ve ever [seen],’ he is heard saying in footage of the discovery shared on social media.
In the video, a man extends the tip of a speargun towards the jawfish ‘not to harm him, just to see if he snaps’ before the animal reacts.
The jawfish snaps at the tip of the speargun before disappearing underwater.
The group back away in fright, with one woman heard saying the terrifying fish was going to ‘haunt me in my sleep tonight’.
‘Can we keep looking to see if we can find a pair of spare underpants,’ Mr Wild said.
‘Imagine nearly stepping on this bad boy while you walk the mud flats on a remote island at night!’ he later captioned the footage on TikTok.
Aussies were quick to share their thoughts on the terrifying encounter.
‘My soul left my body for a minute,’ one person commented.
‘Made me jump,’ another wrote
‘Why does everything that wants to harm me live in ,’ a third said.
A fourth agreed: ‘Another reason to stay away from ‘.
Marine expert Professor Culum Brown said the species are not known to harm humans unless they are provoked.
‘I doubt they pose any real risk to people unless you were silly enough to put your fingers in their burrow,’ he told YahooNews.
Black jawfish, which have forward-facing eyes and store their eggs in their mouths, can be found in tropical waters and coral reefs.
Black jawfish or opistognathus inornatus are a ray-finned species of fish.
The fish are mainly found in coastal waters, coral reefs and rubble areas.
There are known populations of the species in WA’s north and northwest as well as some parts of Far North Queensland and the Northern Territory.
Jawfish can grow up to 55cm in length and weigh up to 2kg.
The species has large forward-facing eyes and are known to store their eggs in their large mouths, which they also use to dig holes and burrows to live in.
Black jawfish are territorial animals and usually go back into their holes and burrows when alerted to danger.
Their diets consist of plankton, shrimps and small marine creatures found on the bottom of the ocean.