Tag: sea creature

Watch: Researcher wades out to greet rare, alien-like sunfish

A whale researcher in British Columbia, Canada, last week experienced an extraordinary encounter with a rare and enormous sunfish that appeared outside his home.

A whale researcher in British Columbia, Canada, last week experienced a “once-in-a-lifetime” encounter with a rare and enormous sunfish that he spotted from his home.

Jared Towers, who lives on Cormorant Island, waded into the water with what was later identified as a hoodwinker sunfish swimming just yards from shore.

“I can’t believe this just happened!” Towers wrote Oct. 25 on Facebook. “I’ve seen many sunfish (Mola) offshore over the years but never so close to home or this close up. Also, it turns out this is a Hoodwinker Sunfish (Mola tecta), a species only recently discovered.”

The hoodwinker sunfish was first identified as a species in 2017. They were subsequently believed to inhabit only subtropical and temperate waters in the Southern Hemisphere.

In 2019, however, a hoodwinker sunfish washed ashore near Santa Barbara, marking the first documentation of the species in the Northern Hemisphere.

RELATED: ‘Stunned’ researchers rescue 4,000-pound sunfish from net 

Towers told the Times Colonist that after spotting the sunfish he waded out to spend several “surreal” minutes with a gentle giant that weighed perhaps 400 pounds, measuring 7 feet wide and 10 feet across.

“It had these big beautiful eyes and it was looking me over up and down,” Towers said. “I’m used to having large mammals watching and having this inquisitiveness, but I never expected this out of a fish processing information about me.”

The most prevalent sunfish in the Northern Hemisphere is the Mola mola, which can weigh more than 5,000 pounds.

Alien-like in appearance, with truncated bodies, small mouths and large eyes, ocean sunfish are docile creatures that prey on sea jellies, squid, and other gelatinous zooplankton.

The sunfish encountered by Towers – it eventually swam away – was identified as a hoodwinker sunfish by Jackie Hindering of the Marine Education and Research Society in Port McNeill on Vancouver Island.

She told the Times Colonist that warming waters might in the Pacific be responsible for more sunfish appearing off British Columbia.

Hoodwinker sunfish might easily be misidentified as Mola molas. But they boast subtly different features, including a rounder head shape and smaller tail size.

Watch: Exotic sea creature washes ashore alive, baffles beachgoer

A beachgoer was baffled upon discovering a serpent-like fish in the surf, saying it felt like a shark but looked like “a dolphin thing.”

A beachgoer in New Zealand was baffled upon discovering an exotic sea creature languishing in the surf, saying it felt like a shark but looked like “a dolphin thing.”

Isaac Williams shot video of the serpent-like fish and marine science lecturer and researcher Dr. Bridie Allan of the University of Otago posted it on Twitter.

“What?” Williams can be heard saying in the video. “Whoa…It feels like a shark…What?…Look at this, it looks like a dolphin thing. Look how long it is. Wonder how it tastes…And it’s alive. I don’t know what the [heck] it is.”

The encounter occurred last week on a beach in Aramoana, a small coastal settlement north of Dunedin on the South Island of New Zealand.

Allan noticed Williams investigating something in the surf and went to check it out.

Also on FTW Outdoors: Angler revives exotic sea creature in rare encounter

“As soon as I saw it, I knew it was an oarfish,” Allan told Stuff.

“It was alive but very clearly distressed…It was very weakly alive.”

The beachgoers attempted to get the oarfish swimming again, but it was futile, as it kept floating to the surface.

“It wouldn’t have survived, there is no way,” Allan told Stuff. “I’ve seen enough dead fish to know it was on its last legs.”

Oarfish inhabit waters 660 to 3,300 feet so they are rarely seen.

This oarfish was nearly 12-feet long, or roughly the same size as previous oarfish that have washed ashore in the area.

One of the first specimens of oarfish was collected from another Otago beach in 1883 and sent to London’s Natural History Museum; it was 12½ feet. An 11-foot specimen (a skeleton) washed ashore in 1887 and is preserved at Otago Museum. In 1960, a 12-foot oarfish was found at Allan Beach in Dunedin, and in 2015 a 9½-foot oarfish was discovered in Aramoana.

Also on FTW Outdoors: Video from inside the mouth of a tiger shark captured accidentally

These are small compared to oarfish spotted elsewhere. The largest is said to have measured 26-feet long. In 1996, U.S. Navy SEALS held up a 23-foot long oarfish.

So, what happened to the oarfish that washed ashore in New Zealand last week? Allan stated on Twitter that Williams eventually took it home to smoke it.

Woman handles deadly sea creature in trend of ‘alarming stupidity’

A woman posted video on TikTok showing her scooping up a blue-ringed octopus, a highly venomous cephalopod whose bite can be fatal.

In an act called “alarming stupidity” by one expert, a woman in Australia posted video on TikTok showing her scooping up a blue-ringed octopus, a highly venomous cephalopod whose bite can be fatal.

“There have been a handful of fatal encounters with these animals,” the Natural History Museum writes.

“TTX [tetrodotoxin] can take effect quickly, rapidly weakening and paralyzing muscles alongside a host of other potential side effects, such as vomiting and dizziness. While increasingly unable to move, TTX victims generally remain conscious and aware until a lack of oxygen renders them unconscious. Death is usually by respiratory failure, the diaphragm having become paralyzed. This can occur within a matter of minutes.

“There is no antidote for TTX, and most care is supportive, such as ventilation to keep a patient breathing until the effects of the toxin wear off.”

When threatened, the blue-ringed octopus displays iridescent blue rings, a sign not to mess with it. Fortunately, the blue-ringed octopus that the woman identified as Katapillah on TikTok never displayed these features, as seen in the video.

@katapillah

The dangerously beautiful sea 🌊 #fyp #ocean #blueringedoctopus #immune #stillalive #nature #sealife

♬ Under the Sea (Instrumental) [From “The Little Mermaid”] – London Music Works

Videos of people handling these deadly sea creatures are becoming a trend on social media and is “alarming stupidity,” Ian Tibbetts, Associate Professor at the University of Queensland told Yahoo News Australia.

However, Katapillah didn’t know what she was handling when she scooped up the sea creature. She wrote that “I didn’t know until half hour later what it was.”

Also on FTW Outdoors: Bison herd demolishes car, terrorizes driver; ‘they ran right over me’ (video)

Those commenters on Katapillah’s TikTok sure knew, and were mostly incredulous that she would handle the deadly sea creature.

“You are very lucky,” one wrote.

Other reactions:

“Just that far from death.”

“What r u doing? r u mad?”

“Mate do [you] enjoy dying or something?!!! It’s a blue-ring octopus, throw it back n runnnnn.”

“I screamed ‘drop it…NOW.’”

“Do you have a death wish?”

“Lucky to be a live.”

Katapillah was not bitten or hurt in the encounter.

Paddlers spot huge sunfish; looks like something a mad scientist created

On calm waters off Southern California, two paddleboarders came across a massive sunfish known as a mola mola, an odd-looking sea creature.

On calm waters off Southern California, two paddleboarders came across a massive sunfish known as a mola mola, described by one marine biologist as something a mad scientist put together with spare parts.

“It’s such an oddball kind of assembly of parts,” Julianne Steers, a marine biologist and founding board member of the Beach Ecology Coalition, explained further to the Orange County Register.

Rich German and Matt Wheaton were paddling off their hometown of Laguna Beach on Thursday when they encountered the odd-looking sea creature.

“We were just paddling and all of a sudden we were like ‘Oh my God,’” German told the OC Register. “That thing was massive. Most of my encounters are with dolphins and whales, but you never know what you’re going to see.”

German compared the length of the mola mola to Wheaton’s 14-foot stand-up paddleboard and estimated its length at close to 9 feet.

https://www.facebook.com/562114853/videos/pcb.10159605660779854/1102166930522037

Later, German looked up the record for a mola mola and claimed it to be 8 feet, 11 inches with a weight of 5,070 pounds, as reported by Guinness World Records. But Guinness also reported that that fish was later disproven as a mola mola by a scientific study.

However, Guinness also stated that a mola mola was found floating off Whangarei Heads in New Zealand in 2006 that stretched 10 feet, 9.9 inches with an estimated weight of 4,850 to 5,070 pounds.

Also on FTW Outdoors: Twilight Zone sea creature washed ashore after sonic boom

Steers told the OC Register that the one spotted by German and Wheaton was bigger than most seen in area waters, saying she’s seen them up to 7-feet long, but she wouldn’t call it a record.

“The only true way to know is if it was out and weighed and officially measured,” she told the OC Register. “But it does look much larger than what we typically see out here.”

German stated on Facebook it was the largest sunfish they’ve seen.

“I just know it was really big,” he told the OC Register. “It was a unique and very cool thing to experience, and another example of why we need to protect the ocean and the amazing life that calls it home.”

Photos courtesy of Rich German.

[listicle id=1315337]

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.

Also on FTW Outdoors: Twilight Zone sea creature washed ashore after sonic boom

“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.

[listicle id=1315337]

‘Twilight Zone’ sea creature washes ashore after sonic boom

Video footage shows a menacing-looking sea creature with a gaping mouth full of fang-like teeth that mysteriously washed ashore alive.

A menacing-looking sea creature with a gaping mouth full of fang-like teeth and typically found in the “Ocean Twilight Zone” mysteriously washed ashore alive on a Southern California beach last week.

Davey’s Locker Sportfishing and Whale Watching posted rare video of the lancetfish squirming about on the sand near the edge of the shoreline in Laguna Beach. Goff Tours, a professional Surf School in Laguna Beach, captured the footage.

“Creature from the Twilight Zone!” Davey’s Locker announced on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/DaveysLockerSportfishing/videos/449228673478683

The Ocean Twilight Zone is described by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution as a layer of water that stretches around the globe and lies about 650 to 3,300 feet below the ocean surface, just beyond the reach of sunlight.

Though the lancetfish has been found in waters as shallow as 10 fathoms in Oregon and the Gulf of Mexico, it is primary found in that Twilight Zone and beyond, from 328 to 6,560 feet.

Also on FTW Outdoors: This ‘Cotton candy’ lobster is so rare, there’s only 1 in 100 million

The appearance of this odd sea creature on an Orange County beach remains unexplained, but it emerged on shore within minutes of a mysterious sonic boom, Goff Tours reported.

“After capturing this video, the fish was pulled safely back into the water, where it swam away, seemingly unharmed,” Davey’s Locker reported.

More from Davey’s Locker:

It’s been identified as a deep-sea Longnose Lancetfish. With gaping fanged jaws, enormous eyes, a sailfin, and a long, slithery body, lancetfish look like they swam right out of prehistoric times. Though the fish itself is not rare, since Longnose lancetfish inhabit all of the planet’s oceans, it is extremely rare to see one of these fish alive along a beach in southern CA.

Growing to more than 7-feet long, lancetfish are one of the largest deep-sea fishes, swimming to depths more than a mile below the sea surface. Lancetfish are notorious cannibals and also feed voraciously on many other fish and invertebrates. Many descriptions of new species of fishes, squids, and octopuses have been based on specimens collected from lancetfish stomachs, since food within their stomachs are often found in a nearly pristine state, barely digested. Scientists with NOAA Fisheries Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center speculate that lancetfish may eat as much as they can whenever they find food, then digest it later when they need it. Their stomachs provide a window into the rarely studied twilight zone in the ocean, where the fish mainly hunt.

Mysterious deep-sea oarfish found on Baja beach; photos

A deep-sea oarfish has washed up on a Mexican beach for the second time in six weeks, the latest a 20-foot specimen discovered last Friday near La Paz in Baja California Sur.

A deep-sea oarfish has washed up on a Mexican beach for the second time in six weeks, the latest a 20-foot specimen discovered last Friday near La Paz in Baja California Sur.

Serpent-like oarfish, which can measure 30-plus feet, reside in tropical and temperate waters at depths of 600 to more than 3,000 feet. They’re rarely encountered but occasionally become stranded on beaches, dead or dying.

The 20-foot oarfish was found at Pichilingue, a port city inside La Paz Bay, by Fernando Cavalin, Tito Taylor and Laura Lafont. (See photos.)

Cavalin, Hatchery Manager at Earth Ocean Farms in La Paz, told For The Win Outdoors that the biologists were performing a monthly inspection at the facility’s intake area when they spotted the oarfish in the rocks.

ALSO ON FTW OUTDOORS: Watch as 20 lions descend on river to drink in a perfect line

“It was a surprise,” he said of the afternoon discovery. “At first I thought it was alive but it was dead; probably died in the morning.”

Cavalin, who placed the oarfish back into the bay to become food for nearshore critters, told Big Fish that he discovered a much smaller oarfish at Pichilingue in 2015.

Last month, on June 11, an 18-foot oarfish was found dying on a beach in Cozumel, a Mexican island in the Caribbean Sea.

La Paz, capital of Baja California Sur, is on the Sea of Cortez, or Gulf of California. Though oarfish sightings anywhere are rare, a handful of fairly recent sightings have occurred on Sea of Cortez beaches.

Last June, about 100 miles south of La Paz, two brothers on a fishing trip found and revived a juvenile oarfish and watched it swim away, but it was doubtful that the fish survived.

In 2012, in Cabo San Lucas on Baja California’s tip, a 15-foot oarfish washed ashore alive. A crowd of tourists gathered to watch an unsuccessful attempt to revive the animal.

It’s not sure why the denizens occasionally become stranded.

However, scientists believe that because the slender fish live at depths where there are no currents, and because they lack significant body mass, they struggle if they venture too high in the water column.

Cavalin said oarfish in the Sea of Cortez might languish in warmer sea temperatures during the summer, making them vulnerable.

Because of their bizarre appearance, oarfish are believed to have spawned sea monster myths among ancient mariners.

Some people believe that oarfish strandings portend catastrophic events, such as earthquakes. Cavalin dismissed this as superstition, adding: “It is just a fish, like any other.”

–Images showing Fernando Cavalin (black-and-yellow vest), Tito Taylor and Laura Lafont posing with the oarfish are used with the permission of Fernando Cavalin

Angler catches bizarre sea creature, luckily doesn’t touch it

Alyssa Ramirez thought a piece of seaweed had tangled with her bait when she reeled it in, until she saw it squirming. She had caught a bizarre sea creature. Luckily she didn’t touch it.

While pier fishing with her mother, Alyssa Ramirez thought a piece of seaweed had tangled with her bait when she reeled it in, until she saw it squirming. She had caught a bizarre sea creature, one you could call hazardous to your health.

“My mom and I looked at each other like, ‘What is that?’” Ramirez told USA Today/For The Win Outdoors. “I laughed because that was definitely not a fish.”

Ramirez made the odd catch on Saturday from a pier in Port Isabel, Texas, and later, curious to know what it was, sent video to Texas Parks and Wildlife and asked officials to identify it, which they did Wednesday.

Luckily, Ramirez hadn’t touched the sea creature.

As it turns out, it was a bearded fireworm, which can inject a powerful neurotoxin from its tiny bristles on its flanks that can result in a wound that feels like it’s on fire, and the pain can last for hours.

[protected-iframe id=”a0bdb37071517bd0d1b72470523cbcaa-58289342-9134387″ info=”https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Ftexasparksandwildlife%2Fvideos%2F535255777345421%2F&show_text=0&width=268″ width=”268″ height=”476″ frameborder=”0″ style=”border: none; overflow: hidden;” scrolling=”no”]

“Luckily I didn’t have to touch it because it let go of my bait,” Ramirez said. “By the way it moved and the red colors it had, I knew not to touch it. I placed it on the rail of the pier [where it let go and] I took video and pictures of it…It wiggled around for a few minutes and then it then fell into the water by itself.”

Also on FTW Outdoors: Spearfisherman dragged out to sea by great white shark

From the Animal Kingdom, the word aposematism comes to mind. It’s the advertising by an animal to predators that it is not worth eating, that it could be foul tasting or, in this case, toxic, and bright colors are an indicator.

Science and the Sea’s described a bearded fireworm:

It’s generally no more than a few inches long, but one touch can be a big problem…

The bearded fireworm is found in warm, shallow waters in and around the Atlantic Ocean, including the Gulf of Mexico. It looks a bit like a fuzzy caterpillar. Its body can be green, orange, or other bright colors, and small tufts of white bristles line its sides, creating the “fuzzy” appearance.

This one was “a good 3 inches long,” Ramirez said, and it apparently liked squid. That’s what they were using for bait.

Fortunately, the bizarre sea creature wasn’t the only thing they caught that day. They also landing a couple of (not quite as exciting) whiting fish.

Photos courtesy of Alyssa Ramirez.

Follow David Strege and the outdoors on Facebook.