The founder of a New Orleans preschool is trying to identify a mysterious creature she caught on camera swimming in a lagoon at a city park.
Kim Frusciante posted a video to the Instagram page for the preschool, Early Partners, showing the large creature swimming at New Orleans City Park.
Frusciante said she spotted the mysterious swimmer while walking in the park's Sculpture Garden with her family.
"We looked into the water and saw a mysterious serpent-like creature. It is nothing I have seen before land or sea," Frusciante told WGNO-TV. "The great people of the Internet seem to think it is a genetically modified carp fish created in a lab and released in City Park."
The teacher said she was shocked by the size of the animal.
"It was quite long. I have a 4-year-old slightly smaller than it and it was weaving on the surface, and a lot of scales, the tail was red and it was swishing around aimlessly hanging out on the surface much longer than a normal fish," she said.
Frusciante said her preschool students are working to identify the creature.
"In our sea creature studies, and we haven't seen anything like this in our books. I am pretty well convinced that it is the Loch Ness monster of New Orleans," she said.
New Orleans City Park officials said they are reviewing the footage and will work with their aquatic partners to try to identify the species depicted in the video.