A mystery sea creature with hundreds of tiny twitching tentacles was caught in Thailand.

The strange deep-sea animal was found inside fisherman Tirawat Sawangsuk's net among freshly caught stingrays on the island of Phuket on September 9.

Tirawat thought it was a dried ball of seaweed or coral at first but then it started to move, so the trawler took it out of the fishing net to observe on the boat.

Footage shows the bizarre alien-like creature with slimy trembling tentacles branching out of its body.

Fisherman Tirawat said: ‘I was confused and scared. I did not know what it was, and I don't know whether it was poisonous or not.

'I've been a fisherman all of my life and never seen anything like this.'

The superstitious local tossed the animal back to the sea, fearing it was a bad omen.

He added: ‘I hear stories of creatures from the bottom of the ocean, but it's the first time I have found one.

'I released it back to the sea and took a video of it to ask experts in the area. But when I showed the elders, nobody knew what it was too. It could be a bad omen.'

It was still unknown what species the alien-like creature belongs to, but they are believed to be basket starfish, a sea creature that lives in the deep sea. Some basket stars are visible at night on a shallow tropical reef. In the wild, basket stars can live up to 35 years.