Dead creature with ‘needlelike’ teeth washes up on NC’s Outer Banks. What is it?

A hollow-eyed predator with spikes for teeth has washed up dead on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, igniting a social media debate over the species.

“Definitely a shark, but what kind?” Chris Patterson wrote on the OBX Outer Banks NC Facebook page.

Guesses have ranged from a thrasher shark to a rarely seen goblin shark – two species that don’t resemble each other.

However, discrepancy is understandable due to the carcass coming ashore deflated, like a big creepy balloon with the air let out.

Lynsie McKeown of Virginia found it while vacationing at the home of Kelly Wosahla in Salvo.

She estimates it was about 5-feet, 9-inches long, the eyes were missing, and oddly, it was not emitting an odor.

“I found it while walking on the beach Thursday (April 30) evening,” she told The Charlotte Observer. “I noticed a dark shape along the shoreline and walked over to it. ... I was surprised how far up on the beach it was. I didn’t see any obvious wounds.”

The North Carolina Shark Conservancy saw her video on the OBX, Outer Banks NC Facebook page, and the nonprofit agency has identified the predator as a sand tiger shark.

Sand tiger sharks are native to the East Coast. They reach about 10.5 feet in length, have “large, needlelike, protruding” teeth, and are bottom dwellers, according to NOAA Fisheries.

“We did see some evidence of fisheries interaction with the presence of fishing line, but it is impossible to say if that was the cause of death, especially with that level of decomposition,” conservancy officials told The Charlotte Observer.

Evidence also indicates it “was dead for a bit of time before the shark washed ashore,” officials said.

The conservancy has a shark stranding hotline (252-216-2810) and has received reports of multiple shark strandings in recent weeks, “including sand tigers, sandbars, dogfish, and threshers.”

Salvo is on Hatteras Island, about a 220-mile drive southeast from downtown Raleigh.