The oarfish is incredibly rare, and is likely to be the basis of many sea serpent legends. Photo: YouTube//Screenshot//Emily Miller
There are plenty of very strange creatures sharing the planet with us, but the oarfish is one of the strangest. Not just because of its looks, but because we don’t actually know all that much about how they live their lives. And recently, beachgoers at La Jolla Cove were among a very select few humans who’ve ever laid eyes on one in person.
The oarfish is surrounded by legend. Known also as the “Doomsday Fish,” they are thought to be — by the superstitious, at least — a harbinger of disaster.
“They wash up on the beach before or after a major earthquake or tsunami,” Ben Frable, with Scripps Institution of Oceanography, told CBS8 in San Diego, “and this has been for centuries in Japanese mythology and folklore.”
The one that washed up in San Diego was nearly 12 feet long. According to reports, it’s only the 20th time an oarfish has washed up in California since 1901.
The species almost never comes to the surface unless it’s dead or dying. As the world’s longest bony fish, they have been recorded up to 36 feet in length.
Although they look eel-like, they don’t swim the same as eels do. Instead of wiggling their way through the water, they use their dorsal fins to propel themselves. They feed on krill, squid, plankton, and the occasional crustacean.
The dead fish will be examined by the Marine Vertebrate Collection at Scripps, and researchers are hoping to glean much-needed information about the animal. NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center scientists performed a necropsy a few days after it was found.
