Alien-like sea creature discovered pulsating on New Zealand beach

A family came across a huge bizarre looking, pink-colored sea creature while walking along a beach in New Zealand.

The family came across the peculiar pink creature that seems to resemble a volcano shape. The weird creature, which has white segmented outer body with colorful red inside, later turned out to be a species of huge jellyfish.

“[Jellyfish] were everywhere and we were pretty amazed. Then we saw this massive one that seemed different from all of the others. We spent ages looking at it because of its beautiful colors and shape. My boy said it reminded him of a volcano,” Eve Dickinson, who came across the creature, explained to Auckland Now.

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What’s more is that the jellyfish was alive and even pulsating. “We had been out walking and there was up to 100 jellyfish along the estuary and beach. At the end, after about an hour, we came across this one. It almost looked alien-like and was slowly moving or contracting. Our initial reaction was impressed, because it’s an amazing looking thing,” said Eve’s husband, Adam Dickinson.

Explaining how it was unlike anything he had ever seen before, Adam told Yahoo7, “It was pretty incredible and really hard to describe. It almost looked like a load of muscles contracting.”

“The other jellyfish we found on the beach, we turned them upside down to see if it would look similar to this one and none of them did,” Dickinson said. “This one was definitely different. We have never seen anything like it. It was pretty cool.”

As identified by New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, the creature was a lion’s mane jellyfish or Cyanea capillata, which are also known as giant jellyfish or hair jelly; they usually grow up 20-inches wide.

The marine animal looks more recognizable when underwater since under its mushroom top, there are several thin strands making up its tentacles, which can trail up t 109ft – longer than a blue whale. However, when washed up, its flattened structure gives it an alien-like appearance.

These jellyfish typically feasts on plankton, small fish, and other tiny organisms. Though their stings are rarely deadly, but can be extremely painful, as per Express.co.