Extremely rare "doomsday fish" found off Southern California coast

2 years ago by MicroWave to c/news

Oarfish have a reputation as harbingers of disasters — and this one was spotted just two days before a 4.4 quake rattled Los Angeles.

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.

flicker 58 points 2 years ago

I understand that this is an extremely rare fish sighting, but seeing all these smiling people touching a dead fish they're currently in the water with is so weird and creepy. Don't touch dead things! You don't know why they're dead!

path: 0 11841717, hotness: undefined, score: 58, children: 4
SarcasticMan 21 points 2 years ago

Damn it, now we have Doomsday fish AIDS. I hope you're happy now oceangoers.

path: 0 11841717 11842917, hotness: undefined, score: 21, children: 2
11111one11111 3 points 2 years ago

Stop getting fancy with it. Everyone knows diseases are named animal name-pox so it'd be doomsdaypox lol /s

path: 0 11841717 11842917 11843964, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 1
EmpathicVagrant 2 points 2 years ago

Doomsdaids-pox, got it.

path: 0 11841717 11842917 11843964 11862177, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
YungOnions 4 points 2 years ago

Yeah, likewise. There's a shot of the mangled, rotting fish corpse on the sand surrounded in flies and people are just prodding it. Putting aside how bad it must smell, why the fuck would you want to touch it at all?!

path: 0 11841717 11861069, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 0
MossyFeathers 49 points 2 years ago

I wonder if their tendency to appearance before an earthquake is just coincidence, or if there are signs, like changes in water temperature, changes in current, bursts of electromagnetic energy, etc, that can indicate that an earthquake is going to occur several days in advance; and oarfish are sensitive to it, resulting in them surfacing and dying from depressurization.

path: 0 11840332, hotness: undefined, score: 49, children: 10
Leeks 34 points 2 years ago path: 0 11840332 11840620, hotness: undefined, score: 34, children: 9
leisesprecher 60 points 2 years ago

It's clearly the other way around. These animals leave, causing plates to slip because of reduced weight.

path: 0 11840332 11840620 11840758, hotness: undefined, score: 60, children: 1
dhtseany 12 points 2 years ago

I don't know enough about oarfish to refute this claim so I'll assume it's likely accurate.

path: 0 11840332 11840620 11840758 11842224, hotness: undefined, score: 12, children: 0
catloaf 6 points 2 years ago

This one was dead, so I don't think it was any kind of reaction.

path: 0 11840332 11840620 11841130, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 5
Leeks 7 points 2 years ago

It could be. Maybe it surfaced because of some detection, then the depressurization killed it.

path: 0 11840332 11840620 11841130 11841250, hotness: undefined, score: 7, children: 4
11111one11111 1 point 2 years ago

I'd say that would be evolutionary retardation if that's an actual thing lol

path: 0 11840332 11840620 11841130 11841250 11843996, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 3
CheeseNoodle 3 points 2 years ago

My understanding was that fault lines create low pressure waves that animals can detect before an earthquake occurs. I think these days we have equipment that can generally detect them before animals do.

path: 0 11840332 11840620 11843247, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
MerchantsOfMisery 40 points 2 years ago

I caught one of these in 2020 during the height of the pandemic (in Animal Crossing).

path: 0 11843181, hotness: undefined, score: 40, children: 1
__init__ 14 points 2 years ago

I hope I catch morefish!

path: 0 11843181 11844770, hotness: undefined, score: 14, children: 0
Cocodapuf 27 points 2 years ago

I had no idea what a "doomsday fish" was, making it a pretty confusing headline, I nearly skipped the story. If on the other hand it had just said "oarfish" I would have known exactly what they were talking about and found the headline more interesting.

path: 0 11841063, hotness: undefined, score: 27, children: 2
BlucifersVeinyAnus 6 points 2 years ago

Ok

path: 0 11841063 11844942, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 0
scytale 5 points 2 years ago

The term is more familiar in Asia on countries along the pacific ring of fire, where fishermen and people living on the coasts see the surfacing of deep sea creatures as omens of a big disaster coming, usually an earthquake.

path: 0 11841063 11843271, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 0
cheese_greater 13 points 2 years ago

Catching these in Animal Crossing is such a thrill

path: 0 11840092, hotness: undefined, score: 13, children: 0
seedoubleyou 1 point 2 years ago path: 0 11867245, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
MediaBiasFactChecker -7 points 2 years ago path: 0 11840010, hotness: undefined, score: -7, children: 0
news
news

@lemmy.world

login for more options
39538
40342
9822

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.

Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.


5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.


7. No duplicate posts.

If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.

All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

go to feed...