Doomsday fish caught off Tiwi Islands.
A rare sea animal has been caught off the Australian coast, a creature also known as the “doomsday fish” in some parts of the world. This fish is formally known as oarfish and is extremely hard to spot.
Curtis Peterson from Tiwi Islands Adventures caught the oarfish and shared the photo on Fishing Australia TV on Facebook. The islands are about 80 km from Darwin in the Northern Territory.
Oarfish live in tropical areas at depths of 20 metres to 200 metres, according to the Australian Museum.
Oarfish can grow up to a massive nine metres in length and, hence, when seen on the surface, look similar to serpents.
“They are sometimes seen on the surface, and this may contribute to tales of sea serpents.”
Oarfish appearances, although rare, have been reported across the world over the years. Recently, one of them washed up at a California beach. Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, said that the fish has only been seen 20 times in the region since 1901.
The fish caught in the US was only 12-foot-long (3.7 metres), and still was considered a fascinating find.
Also Read: ‘Doomsday fish’ appears in California. Two days later, earthquake hits LA
Oarfish are a rare sight since they live thousands of feet deep in oceans. They look like a silver ribbon and filter-feed on krill and crustaceans.
Why is it called doomsday fish?
The creature is often called a “doomsday fish” because it is linked to bad occurrences. These fish are said to bring with them earthquakes and other disasters.
Japanese folklore calls them harbingers of disaster and has formed the basis of ancient tales of sea monsters, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History.
In the case of the fish found in California, an earthquake struck the city two days after it was seen.
The oarfish was seen near San Diego on August 10, and a quake of magnitude 4.4 hit Los Angeles on August 12.
However, experts say that the two events are not linked.
“There’s this thought that they’re a doomsday fish or a bad omen and that they seem to signal things like tsunamis or earthquakes,” Zachary Heiple, a doctoral student at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, told Live Science.
Rubbishing it as mere superstition, Heiple said, “There didn’t really seem to be any correlation.”
Source :Anamica Singh , Wionews.com