"Fish Body with Horse Face"... Bizarre Deep-Sea Fish Caught in Australian Waters

In Some Areas Called the 'Last Day' Fish
Deep-Sea Fish Disaster Myths Lack Scientific Evidence

A bizarre-looking deep-sea fish caught in the Australian sea has become a hot topic. On the 25th (local time), Australia's Daily Mail and 9 News cited a report from the fishing specialty broadcast 'Fishing Australia TV' that a rare deep-sea fish was caught alive off Melville Island, the second largest island in Australia.

A bizarre-looking deep-sea fish caught in the Australian sea has become a hot topic. On the 25th (local time), the Australian Daily Mail and 9 News reported, citing the fishing specialty broadcast Fishing Australia TV, that a rare deep-sea fish was caught alive off the coast of Melville Island, the second largest island in Australia.
[Photo by Fishing Australia TV Facebook]

According to the report, Curtis Peterson, the captain of the fishing boat that caught the deep-sea fish, caught a rare deep-sea species called the Oarfish at a depth of 1000 meters off Melville Island last week. It is very rare for an Oarfish, which is usually caught mainly in Asia, to be caught alive in Australia. The Oarfish caught this time is characterized by a head that looks like a horse and a long body. Looking closely at its appearance, it resembles an alien life form rather than a fish.

Overseas netizens who saw the Oarfish commented, "If you put a saddle on it, can you gallop across the sea?" and "It looks exactly like the Hippocampus that Poseidon rides."

Adult Oarfish can reach lengths of over 9 meters and are called 'doomsday fish' or 'fish of the apocalypse' in some parts of the world. It is commonly believed that when an Oarfish is caught or found, it is a sign of impending disasters such as earthquakes. In fact, in California last August, a 3.6-meter Oarfish was found, and two days later, a magnitude 4.4 earthquake occurred in Los Angeles (LA), California.

The san-galchi caught this time has a head shaped like a horse and a long, slender body. Looking closely at its appearance, it resembles an alien life form more than a fish.
[Photo by Fishing Australia TV Facebook]

In Japan, where earthquakes frequently occur, the Oarfish is also called 'Yug?shishi' (Dragon Palace Lion). This name originates from the story that the fish comes up from the Dragon Palace to warn of earthquakes and tsunamis. Before the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, 20 Oarfish were reportedly washed ashore along the Japanese coast.

However, the prevailing opinion is that the folklore related to Oarfish lacks scientific evidence. In fact, research was conducted in Japan to verify the correlation between deep-sea fish and major earthquakes. In 2019, a research team from Tokai University and Shizuoka Prefectural University analyzed the relationship between the appearance of deep-sea fish such as Oarfish and earthquakes in Japan from 1928 to 2011, concluding that the folklore surrounding deep-sea fish is baseless superstition.