Rare sighting: Deep-sea fish with arm-like fin on its head washes ashore
A truly odd-looking “sea creature” recently surfaced from the depths of the ocean: a seldom-seen fish with an arm-like filament protruding from its head, a “light bulb” and a set of menacing teeth.
The sighting of an elusive Pacific footballfish, discovered on a shoreline in California last Friday, is so rare that a Florida Fish and Wildlife expert called it “a gift from the sea.”
The Pacific footballfish is a type of anglerfish, with a modified dorsal fin called the illicium, an arm-like filament that extends outward from its head and has a bulb on the end. Anglerfish, which live in dark ocean waters up to 3,000 feet down, are able to “light” this bulb to attract prey.
The fish was found on Newport Beach on Friday and Crystal Cove State Park staff were able to retrieve it intact.
The 18-inch specimen is being kept by the California Department of Fish & Wildlife. A photo of the fish posted on the Facebook page of Davey’s Sportfishing & Whale Watching.
“(It’s a) pretty amazing find,” said Eric Post, an ichthyology collection manager for the Florida biodiversity collection at Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute.
“Washups like this are indeed a rare occurrence, because of the depth at which these species live — bathypelagic zone, below 800 (meters).”
Post also said there are species of footballfish and anglerfish in Florida’s coastal waters as well.
“It’s believed that the Pacific Footballfish (Himantolophus sagamius) is limited to just the Pacific Ocean, (while) and the Atlantic Footballfish (Himantolophus groenlandicus), which is very similar in appearance, can be found around the globe,” he said.
He said it’s likely the fish found in Newport Beach washed up as a result of “some sort of upwelling event” or a catch in a fishing trawl.
Jon Moore, a Florida Atlantic University biology professor at the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and Wilkes Honor College, said he thinks the fish is a female Pacific footballfish, and also suspects it surfaced due to upwelling.
“Where that one washed ashore the continental shelf is really, really narrow and there’s a lot of upwelling in that area from the deep basin, so it could have been wafted up toward the surface,” he said.
Moore said considering all the scavengers such as sharks and seabirds it’s remarkable the fish is in such good condition.
“It looks like it’s in pretty fresh condition,” Moore said, “so it had died very recently.”
