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That sea-dwelling, serpentine conglomeration of nightmare fuel is the frilled shark, one of the oldest — and in the running for the creepiest — living species on the planet.

Its prehistoric contemporaries, like Tyrannosaurus rex and triceratops, died out long ago, but the frilled shark is still swimming around deep below the surface of the world’s oceans, scientists say.

They know that because of an accident that sounds vaguely like the plot of a straight-to-video horror movie. A group of European Union scientists were trawling the depths of the Atlantic Ocean this month, trying to figure out a way to “minimize unwanted catches in commercial fishing,” according to the BBC.

Instead, they ended up capturing one of the rarest and most ancient creatures on the planet, one that may have inspired 19th-century tales of “sea serpents.”

What those sailors didn’t know was that the frilled shark has looked pretty much the same since the breakup of Pangea. Mainly, that look is horrifying.

The largest can grow 6 feet long — the size of a tall man. The shark is named after its gills, which have frilly, fluffy edges, but the cuddly factor ends abruptly there.

Inside its short-snouted head are 300 more reasons to never go farther than the beach: hundreds of needle-sharp teeth, neatly lined in 25 rows.

Photo by Awashima Marine Park / Getty Images

It uses quick lunges to sink those teeth into other sharks, fish, octopuses and squid.

Humans know very little about the frilled shark because it lives deep in the ocean, off the coasts of Japan, New Zealand and Australia.