Indeed, there are strange, strange things lurking in the deep.
Just several weeks ago, within days of occurrence, two large wormlike bodies washed ashore the coast of Santa Catalina Island in southern California. The appearance made quite a fuss for bystanders, who marveled at the discovery, and marine biologists, who long to study the elusive creature.
The beached leviathans are known as oarfish, latin name Regalecus glesne, and they are rare sights to behold and even rarer to study. The first creature was identified as a male and measured a whopping eighteen feet in length. The second monstrosity was a female who was full of eggs and measured about fourteen feet long.
Oarfish are the world’s largest bony fish and look strikingly similar to eels however they move in a very different manner, one that makes them incredibly inefficient swimmers. While eels use their entire bodies to propel themselves through the water, oarfish rely on undulating their fins to push themselves through the water. Despite their poor swimming abilities, they seem to elude fishing nets extremely well.
Marine biologists are in disagreement about where oarfish live and feed in the ocean. However, these newest specimens may offer insight to both of these questions. Many parasites such as tapeworms were found inside of the male which could contain clues about their preferred diet.
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