Kayakers and snorkelers exploring the Southern California coast spotted an extremely rare oarfish, nicknamed a “doomsday fish” since they are seen in some parts of the world as harbingers of imminent disasters. It’s one of less than two dozen confirmed sightings of an oarfish in the state in over 120 years, according to UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
The oarfish is a “strikingly large, odd-looking fish” with a long, silvery, ribbon-shaped body, according to the Ocean Conservatory. The fish can grow to more than 30 feet long, and have large eyes and “foreboding” red spines in a crown-like cluster. Typically, these fish are deep-sea dwellers and thrive in waters that are the least explored by scientists.
Michael Wang and Owyn Snodgrass
The fish spotted by oceangoers on August 10 was 12 feet long, according to the institution. The fish had already died at the time of the discovery, and was found near the shores of La Jolla Cove. Because the fish usually reside in the deep ocean, they are only spotted close to the surface if they are sick, dying or disoriented, according to the conservatory.
Only 20 oarfish have washed up in California since 1901, the Scripps Institute said.
The group coordinated with the NOAA Fisheries Service, California Sea Grant team members and local lifeguards to transport the fish to a NOAA facility. Scientists from the NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography plan to perform a necropsy to attempt to determine a cause of death.
The remains of the fish will later be displayed in the Scripps Marine Vertebrate Collection, which is one of the largest collections of deep-sea fish in the world, according to the institution.
The fish have their alarming nickname due to a reputation as harbingers of earthquakes or other bad news, according to the Ocean Conservancy. Twenty such fish reportedly washed up on the shores of Japan right before the catastrophic 2011 earthquake. The California oarfish was indeed found just two days before a 4.4 earthquake struck the region and rattled Los Angeles.