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Late last week, a photograph of a sea creature that washed up on the shores in Spain has captured every one's attention. Despite what some people might be hoping, officials have definitely ruled out the Loch Ness monster. Rumors that it is a massive sea creature with horns have also been dismissed. After studying the carcass, experts are confident that the mysterious body is the skeleton of a thresher shark.

The scary and large carcass was discovered near the Almanzora caves by Luis Siret Beach located in the Andalusian village of Villaricos in Spain. When the specimen was found, the body reeked due to decomposition. There were also horns nearby the creatures when the female swimmer made the shocking discovery.

"A lady found one part, and we helped her retrieve the rest," Maria Sanchez, the civil protection coordinator said according to NBC News. "We have no idea what it was. It really stank, as it was in the advanced stages of decomposition."

The conservationists from the Program in Defense of Marine Animals, also known as Promar, started to attempt to identify the creature. Due to the fact that the animal had broken down so much, making a clear identification from pictures was very difficult. According to Francisco Toledano, a coordinator with the program, stated that the identification process included a lot of photographs because a lot of the carcass was already buried under the sand. They took some samples and buried the rest due to hygienic purposes. Based on the preliminary analysis, Toledano revealed that the carcass was 13-feet long and most likely from a fish species.

"A few people have said it could be the backbone of a shark with the rest of it decaying away. Really we would need a vertebra to properly identify it. If it was a shark it would have cartilage skeleton as opposed to bone," one of the spokesmen from the Marine Biological Association said according to the Independent. "As for the horns - it's pretty inconclusive. No one knows of anything with horns in the sea. From the picture you wonder if it is even part of the creature."

Although some experts believe that it is most likely a thresher shark, there are still other possibilities. One suggestion is that the carcass is an oarfish, which is a large and long fish that lives in tropical oceans. Oarfish have often been mistaken for sea serpents due to its shape. As for the horns, other experts believe that these horns could just be the bones of a smaller creature or bones from the fish' tail. In the meantime, the pictures of the carcass, along with rumors, continue to circulate until more information is known.