Storms have not just been damaging people’s homes but have also been tearing through the habitats of underwater creatures.

High tides and violent stormy waters mean animals such as the sea mouse are being washed up on Sussex beaches and dying.

Olle Akesson, marine officer for the Sussex Wildlife Trust, said: “Obviously it is a real shame that dead animals are being washed up.”


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Last week a member of the public, Pip Rowe, found an odd looking creature on Eastbourne beach and posted the picture to Twitter.

The Sussex Wildlife Trust later identified it as a sea mouse, pictured above, a worm-like creature covered in setae or whisker type hairs and 10cm to 15cm in length.

Mr Akesson said: “Really it was quite unlikely that the animal was still alive.”

He then found one of the creatures – alive and moving – on the coastline in Norfolk and videoed it moving in the silt.

The creatures are native to British waters, the North Sea, North Atlantic as well as the Mediterranean and are called sea mice because of their bedraggled nature when they are washed up on the shore.

They usually bury themselves head-first in the sea bed and can be found as deep as 2,000 metres.

As well as the sea mouse, the storms have also seen fish, sea squirts, crabs, starfish and clams to be beached.