People Thought It's Trash; Experts Reveal It Moves and Has Mouth

A new viral Facebook post revealed an interesting fact about sea creatures. There's a so-called 'sea whip coral' that looks exactly like an abandoned long cable wire. In fact, anyone could have mistaken this sea creature as a 'trash.'

Here's what sea whip coral is. And why you should be careful on not to throw them.

Garbage 'sea creature'?

The photo above was taken by Texas' Padre Island National Seashore, posted on their official Facebook page.

At the first look, it appears to be a thrown long, yellow, coiled cable wire, dumped in the sea. However, as experts revealed, this yellow long thing is not an item that should leave the ocean.

In fact, it is one of the most important sea creatures in the deep ocean that helps the ecosystem. It is called a 'sea whip.'

Sea whip, or also known as sea whip coral, is a common sea creature found from New Jersey down to Mexico.

It is a long, stemmed, made of tiny polyps. Interestingly enough, these tiny polyps have each mouth and eight tentacles in its body.

Sea whip corals can grow up to 3 feet long. To feed, the polyps use their tentacles to brush plankton and other small particles into the coral's body, according to experts at the Chesapeake Bay Program.

What you should do once you found it

It's obvious that a lot of people thought sea whip as a normal trash in the sea. But experts, warned that these creatures must not be harmed or thrown in any way.

"If you look closely at a piece of washed up sea whip, you might notice the black on the inside of this coral. This is the skeleton of the coral, while the colored pieces are the tiny colonies of polyps that make up the living part of the coral. So the next time you're out for a stroll on the beach, look for the sea whip and remember, it's not trash!" warned by Padre Island National Seashore.