A fisherman thought he caught a prehistoric creature when he hooked an 800-pound "dinosaur" off the Florida coast, the New York Daily News reported.
Mark Quartiano, a charter boat captain, said he caught the 14-foot Dactylobatus clarkii _ which is essentially an oversized stingray better known as a Hookskate or Fingerskate _ while fishing the waters off Miami Beach.
"I've caught one like it before, but never that size _ not in the last 30 years I've been doing this," Quartiano told ABC News. "It's a very rare fish. It's like a big, gigantic whipping stingray. It's a dinosaur."
The creature typically dwells in depths of up to 1,000 feet, but Quartiano said his catch was swimming in water half that deep.
"It was very old. It had barnacles all over it," he told the news station.
Quartiano, who made the whopping catch while filming a TV show for a Japanese network, said he released the colossal fish after tagging it.
"Stingrays are usually pretty good to eat, but this one as table fare? I don't know how that would work out," he said.
Mark Quartiano, a charter boat captain, said he caught the 14-foot Dactylobatus clarkii _ which is essentially an oversized stingray better known as a Hookskate or Fingerskate _ while fishing the waters off Miami Beach.
"I've caught one like it before, but never that size _ not in the last 30 years I've been doing this," Quartiano told ABC News. "It's a very rare fish. It's like a big, gigantic whipping stingray. It's a dinosaur."
The creature typically dwells in depths of up to 1,000 feet, but Quartiano said his catch was swimming in water half that deep.
"It was very old. It had barnacles all over it," he told the news station.
Quartiano, who made the whopping catch while filming a TV show for a Japanese network, said he released the colossal fish after tagging it.
"Stingrays are usually pretty good to eat, but this one as table fare? I don't know how that would work out," he said.
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