At first she thought it was a large piece of petrified wood, but when she got up close she saw it was nothing of the sort.
She said: “The tide was coming in and I thought from a distance that it was a large piece of petrified wood.
“As I got closer I realised it was some sort of creature. I poked it with a stick and it was soft to the touch.
“There is a small fin, but the weird part is that there were no eyes anywhere. It looked really heavy.
“But if you follow it back into the water it looks like a fin. Other than that there were little to no features evident.
“I was a little scared as it was not identifiable. If I had not had my puppy with me I would have investigated further.”
The creature, which was discovered on Mulambin Beach in Queensland, Australia, has proved a mystery to the authorities.
Mrs Simmons, from nearby Yeppoon, thought maybe it was a dugong and contacted Sea World, a marine mammal park in the city of Gold Coast.
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Mrs Simmons said there were no features evident on the creature
They agreed that it could indeed be a dugong, however scientists at Queensland’s environment department believe this is unlikely.
They say it could potentially be a shark liver, but they were unable to recover the carcass and so they can’t say for sure.
They said: "The deceased animal in the photo appears to be a marine mammal.
"But due to decomposition and limited information available, it is difficult to determine what species.
"The stranding has not been reported to us and our officers searched the beach and found no sign of the carcass, which may have been washed away with the tide.”
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Mrs Simmons made the discovery while walking her dog Tank
Mrs Simmons, who manages the Discovery holiday park in Coolwaters, Yeppoon, said it brought home how much humans still don’t know about the sea.
She said: “Now that I discovered this creature, I think there is a huge amount we humans don’t know that we think we do.
“Think about the odds that we would know every single animal, mammal, and creature that’s ever existed.
“It’s impossible and I’m not quite sure we will ever get there to be honest because things evolve.
“There are new species of plants and trees that are being discovered through natural evolution.”
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