Tag: anglerfish

A sea creature ‘the stuff of nightmares’ washes up on beach

A beachgoer walking along a Southern California beach came across a scary-looking sea creature washed ashore in what was a rare sighting.

A beachgoer walking along a Southern California beach near sunset last weekend came across a scary-looking sea creature washed ashore in what was a rare sighting, especially considering its kind is typically found in waters more than 2,000-feet deep.

“It’s the stuff of nightmares” is how Jay Beiler described his discovery to NBC San Diego.

Beiler was at Black’s Beach north of San Diego when he noticed the specimen, first thinking it was a jellyfish.

“Then I went and looked at it a little more carefully, and some other people were gathered around it, too, and then I saw that it was this very unusual fish,” Beiler told NBC San Diego.

“I have never seen anything quite like this before. You know, I go to the beach fairly often, so I’m familiar with the territory, but I’ve never seen an organism that looked quite as fearsome as this.”

Beiler snapped some photos of the foot-long fish and ultimately sent them to NBC San Diego, which in turn sought help from Scripps Institution of Oceanography to identify the sea creature.

It was a Pacific footballfish, also known as an anglerfish, a species made famous in the animated movie “Finding Nemo.” It features needle-sharp teeth and an odd-looking bioluminescent light extending forward from the dorsal fin like a goose-neck reading lamp, used to lure prey.

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“This is one of the larger species of anglerfish, and it’s only been seen a few times here in California, but it’s found throughout the Pacific Ocean,” Ben Frable, the collection manager of the marine vertebrate collection at Scripps, told NBC San Diego.

Frable said these fish are “very, very rare and very valuable to science because we get such a rare glimpse at these,” and he planned to search for the carcass.

More from NBC:

“How you have something from that deep in the ocean … it washing up on the beach here in San Diego has partially to do with the underwater topography of the coastline here on the coast, all the way off of La Jolla here — this was obviously found on Black’s,” […] Frable said. “Up the beach a bit, you have what are called submarine canyons, where water and sediments are running off and it can get really deep, really quickly very close to shore.”

Beiler’s find truly was a rare one, Frable said.

“The Pacific footballfish is known from 30 specimens that have ever been collected and brought to museums around the Pacific Ocean,” the Scripps scientist said. “They’ve been found in Japan, all the way down to New Zealand, all over, and a lot of times, they have been found washed up on beaches, so it’s not really quite sure what causes them to wash up.”

Photos courtesy of Jay Beiler.

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Rarely seen deep-sea footballfish washes up at Newport Beach

A man walking on a Southern California beach on Friday discovered the well-preserved carcass of bizarre-looking fish that typically resides at depths of more than 2,000 feet.

A man walking on a Southern California beach Friday discovered a well-preserved carcass of a bizarre-looking fish that typically resides at depths of 2,000-plus feet.

The extraordinary discovery of what has since been identified as a Pacific footballfish, a type of anglerfish, was made by Ben Estef at Crystal Cove State Park in Newport Beach.

Images of the 18-inch anglerfish were captured by Estef and Crystal Cove employees, and shared to Facebook on Saturday by Davey’s Locker Sportfishing & Whale Watching.

“It’s been identified as a deep-sea Pacific footballfish, which is a species of anglerfish that normally dwell at depths more than 3,000 ft below the surface,” Davey’s Locker wrote. “It’s one of more than 300 living species of anglerfish from around the world. Though the fish itself is not rare, it is extremely rare to see one this intact along a beach in southern CA.”

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Encounters with anglerfish are exceedingly rare because of the extreme, lightless depths at which they reside.

In 2014, scientists with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute captured ROV footage of an anglerfish swimming 2,000 feet below the surface.

Dr. Bruce Robison of MBARI described the anglerfish as being “among the most rarely seen of all deep-sea fishes.”  Robison described the footage as first of its kind. The 3.5-inch fish was collected for study.

In 1985 a Pacific footballfish was caught in a fisherman’s net in Monterey Bay and collected by the California Academy of Sciences. The Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in San Pedro also has one on exhibit.

Most species of anglerfish measure less than 12 inches. They’re called anglerfish because first spine of their dorsal fins, called the illicium, extends outward and contains a phosphorescent bulb intended to lure prey.

They snatch up prey, usually small fish or squid, with long, sharp teeth.

While anglerfish fish are rarely observed, many will find them to look familiar based on a scene in the popular animated movie “Finding Nemo,” in which Marlin and Dory are entranced by the glowing light and narrowly escape capture.

The Pacific footballfish discovered Friday was collected by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and it was unclear Saturday where it might end up.

–Images are courtesy of Ben Estef (top) and Crystal Cove State Park