Dog walker spots rare — and ‘highly venomous’ — sea creature on beach in Australia

Along the coast of western Australia, the waves drummed a steady beat. Dianne Bennett had spent a lot of time walking along the reefs and knew the soundtrack well.

But a colorful — and dangerous — surprise awaited her.

“I was walking my dogs in an intertidal area at a very low tide when I found it,” Bennett told McClatchy News on Feb. 24. On the beach in Broome, she spotted a writhing, purple sea creature.

“My first thought was, ‘There’s a weird bunch of eels going down a hole,’” Bennett told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Bennett had stumbled on a rare and “highly venomous” species of sea anemone: Dofleinia…