beached. It would try to swim somewhere when a wave was high enough, but it had no idea which way it needed to go -- and smaller waves would just roll it over higher up the shore. About a meter long.
Update: I had a whole big rant here because I was frustrated because I couldn't figure out what it was exactly, but I found that Bill Hanshumaker tracks these things. I asked him and he kindly informed me that "This is a young salmon shark. They can be definitively identified by their non-serrated teeth and the presence of a secondary keel in front of the caudal fin...."
Caudal fin is the term for tail. I'm amazed that I didn't know that. Keel seems to mean something like a long ridge. Looking at some pages on shark anatomy, I find that the main fins are pectoral fins and dorsal fin (knew those), and then there are secondary dorsal, anal, ventral. And peduncle is the word for the base of the tail. I'm interested in how some of this stuff only comes up probably for kids taking marine science courses with a book that defines it right across from the picture, and then when people put up sites with info, they have no way to remember that peduncle is a technical term that needs to be defined. I guess "ped-" suggests foot, but that might be chance. *checks* Yes, it is from foot. And -uncle is a diminutive. See, O hypothetical reader, what exciting things you learn here?!
