Save Newport Real News in Newport Beach
Monday morning, a rare oarfish was found on the shores of Catalina. The oarfish was the biggest oarfish ever found in the area, measuring 15 feet! Now, 15 feet is pretty long, but it’s not the longest, right? After all, on June 3rd of this year (just before the magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck Japan on the 8th of June), there was a another 15 footer that washed ashore. But here’s the catch: The one this week is only about half the oarfish, and researchers suspect that it was previously about 25 feet long! Holy oarfish, Batman!
Oarfish are incredibly rare and are said to beach themselves only before large seismic events. Several recent large earthquakes were predicated by the beaching of Oarfish. Oarfish are often considered harbingers of earthquakes, and the 2013 Catalina sighting was just two days before the catastrophic Oct 15th 2013 quake that measured 7.2– an energy equivalent of 32 Hiroshima bombs.
Oarfish are known to grow up to 50 feet as a maximum, and usually reside in waters between 700 to 3,000 feet deep.
Here are some photos of the previous oarfish, from the Catalina Conservancy:
