Surprising Facts about Oarfish
Oarfish is a mysterious deep-sea sea creature. They have a thin, long, and silvery body with no scales. They live deep in the sea, ranging from 250 meters (660 ft) to 1,000 meters (3,300 ft) and are rarely seen on the surface. They go ashore either when they are sick or when they are about to die.
They are harmless; they don't have any sharp teeth or venom. Also, since they have a silvery and light reflective body, they look very appealing when they are small.
Here are 8 Surprising facts about Oarfish;
1. They taste like gelatinous goo
Although they live very deep in the sea, sometimes people catch them a few times with a net and have tried eating them. People who have tried eating it generally describe its texture as mushy as well as gelatinous, with almost no flavor.
The watery and almost like a jelly taste is due to their soft bodies.
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Oarfish are also known as Doomsday fish. In 2009, about twenty oarfish were found washed up on the shore in Japan. Just two years later, in 2011, a huge earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, killing over 20,000 people.
After this tragic event, many people began to believe that oarfish appear before natural disasters. That’s why the oarfish got the nickname “Doomsday Fish.”
Although the giant oarfish can grow up to 36 feet (11 meters) in length, they have surprisingly small mouths and no real teeth. They usually feed by sucking in plankton and small fish. Their small mouth are designed in a way to filter-feeding, not biting or chewing.
The fact that they have a gigantic body but a tiny mouth with very small teeth is one of strangest thing about them
As we already know, they can grow up to 36 feet (11 meters) in length, making them the longest bony fish in the world. They are made up of cartilage, while sharks are mostly made up of cartilage. Their long, thin, and flexible bodies are perfectly adapted for the deep ocean.
Oarfish glide through the water completely vertically. This is also one of the most unusual aspects of them. For example, imagine a telephone pole drifting upright through the ocean!! They glide through water like a submarine elevator.
Some researchers think swimming vertically in the deep ocean might help them save more energy. There is little footage on the internet of them swimming.
Female oarfish release thousands of bright pink, jelly-coated eggs that usually float near the ocean surface. Their eggs are clustered together like alien caviar, and each egg is about the size of a grape. Later, when a larvae come out of the egg, they look nothing like adult oarfish.
These baby oarfish drift for months before developing their signature long bodies. Marine biologists say the vibrant egg color may help protect the eggs from UV rays.
Oarfish skeletons are mostly cartilage, while most other fish have hard, calcified bones. This gives them almost a boneless structure, which helps them swim in the deep sea. If we preserve an oarfish in a museum, oarfish specimens often lose their shape because their skeletons can't support their weight out of water.
Oarfish's jelly-like muscles and thin skin break down rapidly in the air and sunlight, so they often disintegrate when washed ashore. Some beachgoers report stranded oarfish melting before their eyes, leaving behind only a silver sheen on the sand.
These are 8 surprising facts about Oarfish. Did you know about these facts before reading this blog?