The opah, a rare fish that is often considered a harbinger of disaster, has washed ashore on the California coast for the second time this year.
Last week, Alison Laferriere, a Ph.D. candidate from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, discovered a nearly 3-meter-long opah on the beach in Encinitas, Southern California, according to NBC News.
An opah washed ashore in California in 2013. (Photo: Mark Bussey/Oceanside).
The opah is described as a “large, strange fish” with a long, silvery body resembling a ribbon. They can grow up to over 9 meters long and have large eyes and red “warning” fins that cluster like a crown. This species inhabits deep ocean waters and thrives in areas that are least explored by scientists.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), this mysterious fish remains largely unstudied by scientists.
The rare, massive, and oddly-shaped opah has sparked intriguing stories for centuries. It is also known as the “doomsday fish” because it often appears just before natural disasters or earthquakes occur.
In 2011, 20 opahs washed ashore in the months leading up to the strongest recorded earthquake in Japan, measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale. This was followed by a devastating tsunami on March 11, which claimed more than 15,000 lives.
The first “doomsday fish” to appear this year in California. (Photo: Michael Wang/Owyn Snodgrass).
According to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, opahs are extremely rare. The institution notes that since 1901, only 21 opahs have been recorded washing ashore on the California coast.
The first opah to appear in California waters this year, measuring 3.65 meters, was spotted by kayakers this summer at La Jolla Cove. It was found just two days before a 4.4 magnitude earthquake struck the area, shaking the city of Los Angeles on August 12.
The fish was later transported to the NOAA Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla for further study.
The remains of the fish are now displayed at the Scripps Marine Vertebrate Collection, one of the largest collections of deep-sea fish in the world.
