Strange spikes have been spotted poking up on popular beaches as an expert revealed that they are buried crabs.
Visitors have seen curious stick-like objects in the sandy beaches along the shores of Wales.
In Pembrokeshire, local resident Lee Murray spotted the spikes while walking between Wiseman’s Bridge and Saundersfoot.
Lee and other beachgoers took to social media to ask about them, which they assumed to belong to some kind of crustacean.
According to WalesOnline, the spikes actually belong to the masked crab.
The name comes from the patterns on the outer shell that appear to resemble a human face.
This crab is typically found around the south and west of the British Isles, but there are several smaller isolated populations dotted across the country, and dispersed throughout European waters.
Last year, a dog walker located a strange-looking crab, while strolling along the Traeth Benllech, Anglesey.
The species of crab is small, and measures just a few centimetres.
It lives on muddy and sandy sea beds, burying down into the sediment often with only its long antenna sticking out.
It mostly feasts on marine worms, and other small creatures which are found in the sand and sediment.
Victoria Riglen, from the Marine Conservation Society, told The Daily Post: “The long “antennae” are used as a snorkel so they can breathe when they bury themselves in the sand.
"We aren’t sure as to why they’d be appearing now more so than any other time of year, but it could be because of the very low tides.”
It's not the first lot of sea creatures to be identified on Welsh beaches this year. In February, following winter storms, two octopi were pictured "walking" across Traeth Gwyn Beach in New Quay, Ceredigion.
Also washed up in the storms were potentially deadly Portuguese Man O'War, identified in several locations along the Gwynedd coast.
In Pembrokeshire, thousands of starfish were washed on a rocky street of coastline near Tenby.
