Rare 'Doomsday Fish' Said to Have Triggered Earthquakes in California Days Before Los Angeles Quake

Beachgoers in California recently found a rare giant “doomsday fish” that legends claim is linked to earthquakes. In a bizarre coincidence, the area experienced an earthquake just two days later.

The 12-foot (3.7-meter) short-crested oarfish is the 20th to wash up on California beaches since 1901, according to a statement from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. The fish lives deep in the sea and is rarely seen by people. It is also known in Japanese folklore as a harbinger of disaster.

“There's a belief that they're doomsday fish or bad omens and they seem to indicate things like tsunamis or earthquakes,” Zachary Hepple, a doctoral student at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography who helped recover the oarfish, told Live Science.

On August 10, an oarfish washed up in waters near San Diego. On August 12, a 4.4-magnitude earthquake struck Los Angeles. But the two events are unlikely to be related.

Hebel pointed to a 2019 study published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America that found that any supposed link between oarfish sightings and earthquakes was pure myth.

“There didn't seem to be any real connection, but it's a really interesting piece of information because it shows how oarfish have interacted with human history over time,” Heibel said.

RELATED: Giant sunfish washed up on Oregon beach may be largest ever

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The team brought the oarfish to shore on a paddleboard. (Photo credit: Emily Miller)

Oarfish can grow up to 36 feet (11 meters) long and may have inspired ancient tales of sea monsters, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History. These ribbon-like creatures live thousands of feet deep in oceans around the world, feeding on krill and crustaceans.

Researchers don't yet know what caused the oarfish to sink in San Diego, but it ended up on a shallow reef between La Jolla Bay and La Jolla Beach. It was a coincidence that a group of current and former marine scientists were snorkeling and kayaking on the reef that day.

Emily Miller, a research associate at the California Sea Grant Foundation who was part of the group, told Live Science in an email that she was “puzzled” when a member of the public told her about the shiny silver fish.

“Visibility wasn’t the best that day, but the highly reflective surface of the oarfish was still very clear underwater,” Miller said.

During an autopsy, researchers found the fish to be 12 feet (3.7 meters) long. (Image credit: Erik Jepsen/UC San Diego)

The fish was near the bottom of the reef, so Miller brought it to the surface and called for help. “I knew right away that this fish would be a very important subject for study, and that researchers at nearby institutions and agencies would want to collect the animal,” she said.

The reef is in a protected area, so researchers were able to get permission to remove the fish, then worked with members of the public to bring the giant animal ashore.

“It was like Christmas morning,” Hebel said. “These incidents are very rare, and they don't happen very often.”

The oarfish was taken to a NOAA facility where researchers took samples to learn more about the animal. It's not clear what caused the oarfish to die, but it was in good condition, according to the statement.

Hebele studies the evolution of deep-sea fish and hopes that DNA samples will help shed light on why oarfish evolved such a strange appearance.

“It was really great that we were able to conserve this oarfish, and we're getting as many specimens as possible,” he said.

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