Monday, February 5, 2007

The Oarfish


The oarfish is usually found in temperate to tropical ocean waters, but is rarely seen by the human eye. It is a large, elongated fish and belongs to the family Regalecidae. The oarfish comprises 4 species and 2 genera. Ocassionally, oarfish become beached after a storm or linger around the near shore when they are sick or dying. This has given the oarfish a spot in maritime folklore as a probable source as a sea serpent. Not much is known about the oarfish because they have never been caught alive. There is the ocassional encounter from scuba divers. Larger fish are sometimes fished commercially.
The oarfish has a long dorsal fish, that starts above their tiny eye and extends down. The do not have any visible teeth and have no scales. They have siverish colored bodies with pink to cardinal red dorsal fins. This is what gives that fish the perception of majesty. In latin, the name regalis means royal.
The rare encounters from divers and accidental catches from trawls have provided scientists with the little bit of information of what they know of the oarfish for their behaviour and ecology. In 2001, the first oarfish was filmed alive. Scientists know that they primarily feed on zooplankton, selectively on shrimp, other crustaceans and tiny euphausiids. Sometimes, small fish, squid and jellyfish are taken as well. Predators probably consist of large open-ocean carnivores.

I first herd of this fish in my ecology of gishes class in a lecture about sea serpents. I thought it was interesting that a long time ago, many people describes these fish as large monsters in the sea with a mane like a lion. When i saw this fish, i thought they were a pretty species and I wanted to learn more about them. Unfortunately, theres not much on them right now, but I was able to learn a bit more about them.

Read More~>
~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oarfish

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