Rare Doomsday Oarfish, Linked To Earthquake Myths, Spotted In Australia

An oarfish, a rare and one of the ocean's longest fish, washed ashore the Ocean Beach near Strahan in Tasmania on Monday. The three-metre-long doomsday fish was discovered by a resident, Sybil Robertson, during a beach walk.

Ms Robertson said, "I'm five foot nine, and I've got a reasonable stride, [it was] a good three-and-a-bit paces. It was fantastic. I just knew it was something unusual and weird."

She said she wasn't aware of the oarfish until she posted the picture of it on the social media page of Citizen Scientists of Tasmania, as per The Guardian.

The post, later shared on Reddit, quickly went viral.

Rarely seen metres-long ‘doomsday' oarfish washes up on Tasmania's wild west coast
byu/CupidStunt13 innews

A user commented, "The ocean is very unhappy with humanity's disdain for it."

Another wrote, "The world DOES seem to be ending more frequently lately."

"Makes sense that they would be 'harbingers of disaster'. It takes a lot of turbulence to force something that far down to the surface. The kind that might cause a tsunami," read a comment.

The deep-sea creature is called the king of herrings and is considered a harbinger of danger. It is capable of growing up to eight meters in length and weighs over 400 kg. The discovery of the oarfish is surprising as it lives deep in the ocean, nearly 150 to 500 metres, and is rarely seen or caught.

Neville Barrett, a marine ecologist at the University of Tasmania, said, "It's exceptionally unusual to see anything like that. We're just not out there. We're not looking, we're not diving, we're not even fishing in that part of the ocean."

Mr Barrett described oarfish as a slow-moving and lazy fish with very little muscle. It usually just floats gently in the water, often in a vertical position, and feeds on plankton.

According to an old Japanese belief, oarfish is referred to as the doomsday fish because its appearance near the surface is thought to be a warning of natural disasters. 

In some cases, people have reported seeing oarfish washing ashore before major earthquakes, especially in Japan. They assume it can sense underwater seismic activity and rise to the surface to warn humans.