Oarfish are our Friends

1860 illustration of an Oarfish, washed up dead on a beach in Bermuda (copyright free image, from Wikimedia Commons).

I have had a fascination with oarfish (ooh, and coelacanths!) ever since I first saw old b/w photos and illustrations of them when I was in the fabulous Mr Kovach's fifth grade class, circa 1979.

The only reasons I do not have an oarfish are that they are huge, at an average 30 feet long, and they live so deep in the ocean, a bathysphere thingy is needed to find them. Now, I don't have a coelacanth for a host of reasons, bizarre and mindane, which would take too long to get into here. Suffice it to say, it's mainly all the fault of my husband, to whom we in this house affectionately refer as The Pet Hater, and also The Grumple Puss.

While we know far too much about some species such as the Giant Panda, mostly because those are fuzzy and cute, not too much was known about oarfish habits before one was seen and studied swimming alive, in 2001.

The oarfish seems to range all over the world, which is why it's weird to me we know so little about it. It's been found off the coast of England, the Eastern, Southern and Western US, in the waters off most Scandinavian countries, and near Bermuda, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Because it is rarely seen at depths we humans swim or fish regularly, mostly they are studied in all their weirdly glory when they wash ashore dying, or are beached already dead. They've been dissected, poked and prodded in the usual way of scientists getting at the heart of things by killing and tearing them apart, but I suspect we'd know much more about them if they were edible, or their skin could be made into shoes.

They're not, and it can't, so we usually just let the bigger ones, called King of the Herring, go about their deep sea business completely unmolested. The smaller versions sometimes are eaten, being a kind of bonefish similar to herring--thus the moniker for the giant ones--but from what I hear, their gelatinous flesh and bony bodies taste pretty icky.

In the last few years the biggest of these Regalecus glesne seem to be showing up dead all over the place, and in numbers that are starting to scare people like me, who genuinely care for them whether food species be they, or not. We don't know what they are, or do, for the most part, and so all this carnage, origin unknown, disturbs us.

Here's a photo of a dead one, discovered in December, 2010:

Photo credit: Darrell Rae, LA Times

I soooo want to be that kid in the picture. He's pretty cool, too: he was the only person, at 7 years old, on that beach who knew what it was when it washed up in Malibu, California.

As these things, go that one is pretty small, most likely a juvenile. I think a cold water version of one of these, an adult, may be where The Loch Ness Monster story comes from; ancient sailors have thought they were mermaids or sea dragons, which, once you've seen one, makes perfect sense.

Interesting article on sea monsters and their myth-origins, here:

http://www.marinebio.org/oceans/mysteries

My son now has Oarfish Love, or as we say here, oarfishlove, with the letters all bunched up together, really fast. He also has a thing for mud and lungfish, which can breath air on land, or in water, and sleep for a really long time. Some of them "walk" on their fins too, which like the oarfish, freaks and fascinates him equally.

How could you not love these kinds of things? Yes, it's easier to love fluffy things with baby faces--and carry them in bags, dressed in baby-like clothes. But, and I am truly not as arrogant as this next will sound, I do think it takes a more mature person to love what is traditionally thought of as an ugly, or troublesome, thing.

So, people who love hairless cats and dogs, good on you, for being capable of grown-up love. You too, sloth and moray eel lovers! Join my club!