18-foot, serpent-like sea creature found off California(http://i.i.cbsi.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim2/2013/10/15/oarfish_AP63860995676_620x350.jpg)
QuoteA marine science instructor snorkeling off the Southern California coast spotted something out of a fantasy novel: the silvery carcass of an 18-foot-long, serpent-like oarfish.
Jasmine Santana of the Catalina Island Marine Institute needed more than 15 helpers to drag the giant sea creature with eyes the size of half dollars to shore on Sunday.
Staffers at the institute are calling it the discovery of a lifetime.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NI_-KwJxr4
CBS NEWS (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57607609/18-foot-serpent-like-sea-creature-found-off-california/)
ok..what's going on off the calif coast to push these deep ocean critters up ..? ?
doesn't look good to me.. earthquake.? military bs ?
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/19/21041529-second-rare-oarfish-washes-up-in-southern-california?lite
Second rare oarfish washes up in Southern California
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Courtesy Mark Bussey / Oceanside
A 13.5 foot oarfish was found along the coast in Oceanside, Calif. on Friday.
By Daniella Silva, NBC News
For the second time in a week, the rare, serpentine oarfish has surfaced on a Southern California beach.
Beach goers at Oceanside Harbor crossed paths Friday afternoon with the deep-sea monster when its carcass washed ashore, Oceanside Police Officer Mark Bussey said. The fish measured 13 ½ feet long.
The discovery came just days after an 18-foot dead oarfish was found in the waters off Catalina Island.
"The call came out as a possible dead whale stranded on the beach, so we responded and saw the fish on the sand right as it washed up," Bussey said.
Oceanside police then contacted SeaWorld San Diego, the Scripps Research Institute and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Suzanne Kohin of NOAA Fisheries Serivice responded, measured and took possession of the oarfish for research, Bussey said.
Bussey added that people on the beach were "flabbergasted" to see the fish.
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"It's not the typical fish you see on shore," he said, adding the oarfish probably weighed over 200 pounds.
But Bussey recognized the fish from the sighting less than a week ago off Catalina Island. Jasmine Santana, a science instructor for the Catalina Marine Institute was snorkeling off Toyon Bay when she discovered the body of the creature on a seabed.
The fish was far too big for Santana to carry alone; it took 15 people to bring the beast to shore.
But these two massive fish are puny by oarfish standards, according to the NOAA. The oarfish is the largest bony fish in the sea and can grow over 50 feet in length.
Very little is known about the species, since it usually is found hundreds, if not thousands of feet below the surface, reaching depths up to 3,000 feet.
Quote from: sky otter on October 19, 2013, 11:57:23 PM
ok..what's going on off the calif coast to push these deep ocean critters up ..? ?
doesn't look good to me.. earthquake.? military bs ?
According to some sites I saw, the Japanese say that when those fish appear on beaches it's a sign of earthquake.
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/can-oarfish-predict-earthquakes-maybe-its-not-crazy-it-sounds-8C11443269
Can oarfish predict earthquakes? Maybe it's not as crazy as it sounds
Marc Lallanilla, LiveScience Facebook
Share on Facebook Twitter LinkedIn GooglePlus Email 1 hour ago
Finding a giant oarfish washed up on the beach is a rare occurrence, since the fish is a deepwater species that's rarely seen at all. So when a second oarfish was found just five days later, the rumor mill kicked into high gear.
An 18-foot-long (5.5-meter) oarfish carcass discovered on Oct. 13 was considered a once-in-a-lifetime event for beachgoers on Catalina Island off the coast of Southern California. But that event was followed five days later by a second oarfish, measuring 14 feet (4.3 meters), found on a beach in San Diego County.
Now, some are claiming that oarfish washing ashore is a sign that an earthquake will soon follow. Shortly before the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, about 20 oarfish stranded themselves on beaches in the area, Mark Benfield, a researcher at Louisiana State University, told LiveScience in an earlier interview. [Video - ROV Captures Bizarre Deep-Sea Oarfish]
The oarfish is known in Japan as ryugu no tsukai or "messenger from the sea god's palace," according to the Japan Times. Dozens of the deep-sea denizens were discovered by Japanese fishermen around the time a powerful 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck Chile in March 2010.
Kiyoshi Wadatsumi, a specialist in ecological seismology, told the Japan Times, "Deep-sea fish living near the sea bottom are more sensitive to the movements of active faults than those near the surface of the sea."
Related story: 'Sea serpent' was egg-carrying female
Animals sensing earthquakes
These weren't the first times researchers suggested links between animal behavior and earthquakes. Indeed, there's a long history of anecdotal reports of pets, zoo animals and wildlife acting very strangely in the days or minutes before a tremor is felt by humans.
One famous instance is recorded in the history of Helike, an ancient Greek city. During the winter of 373 B.C., "all the mice and martens and snakes and centipedes and beetles and every other creature of that kind in the city left," wrote the Roman author Aelianus. "After these creatures had departed, an earthquake occurred in the night; the city subsided; an immense wave flooded and Helike disappeared."
In February 1975, a 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck Haicheng, a city of 1 million people located in China's Liaoning province. But one day earlier, city officials ordered an evacuation based in part on reports of strange animal behavior: Hibernating snakes in the area, for example, abandoned their winter hideouts months before normal. The early evacuation of Haicheng is credited with saving thousands of human lives. [The 10 Biggest Earthquakes in History]
Zoo officials at the Smithsonian's National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C., reported that many of their animals sought shelter or made distress calls in the minutes before a 5.8-magnitude quake struck the region on the afternoon of Aug. 23, 2010. Nocturnal snakes like copperheads came out of hiding, apes moved into the treetops, and flamingos huddled tightly moments before the temblor was felt by zookeepers.
Toads moving uphill
Among the first scientific studies to document animal behavior before an earthquake comes from Italy, where a team of scientists spent a month investigating the breeding behavior of common toads (Bufo bufo) in April 2009. The toads typically breed in a shallow pool on a lakebed.
But at one point, most of the site's toads suddenly disappeared — and five days later, a strong earthquake struck the region. The toads returned to the pool once the quake's last aftershocks occurred. The researchers published their findings in the Journal of Zoology.
"It's the first time that any study has really documented unusual behavior before an earthquake in a scientific and methodical way," lead study author Rachel Grant, a zoologist from The Open University in Britain, told LiveScience in an earlier interview. "We did it properly and scientifically, and consistently looked at behavior."
What could animals detect?
If animals can sense earthquakes before they occur, what could they be experiencing? There's no agreement on what — or if — animals can sense quakes, but there are some intriguing hypotheses.
In the study involving toads, researchers noticed that "toad activity coincides with pre-seismic perturbations in the ionosphere, detected by very-low frequency (VLF) radio sounding," they wrote. Nonetheless, the scientists weren't able to draw any conclusions from their research about what might have triggered the unusual toad behavior.
In research published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health in 2011, Grant and a research team found that tectonic stresses in the Earth's crust send "massive amounts of primarily positive air ions into the lower atmosphere."
When these ions reach a body of water, they oxidize water to create hydrogen peroxide. "Other reactions at the rock-water interface include the oxidation or partial oxidation of dissolved organic compounds," the authors wrote. The resulting compounds "may be irritants or toxins to certain species of animals," possibly resulting in the toads' migration from an otherwise welcoming pond.
No early-warning system
A group of physicists at the University of Virginia — investigating reports of animal behavior before earthquakes — discovered that rocks emitted high levels of ozone gas when crushed under high pressure that mimicked the force of an earthquake.
"Even the smallest rock fracture produced ozone," researcher Catherine Dukes told LiveScience in an earlier interview. "The question is, can we detect it in the environment?" And can animals detect a sudden rise in atmospheric ozone?
None of these hypotheses, however, is ready to be developed into an animal-based, early-warning system for earth tremors. "This is not a way to predict earthquakes," Dukes said. "It's just a way to warn that the Earth is moving and something — an earthquake, or a landslide or something else — might follow."
Follow Marc Lallanilla on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook and Google+. Original article on LiveScience.
I have to wonder if all that radioactive glop pouring into the pacific might also have something to do with this...
seeker
and another voice heard
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24619600
22 October 2013 Last updated at 15:53 ET
Quake rumours over new beached 'sea serpent' in US
The 4.3m (14ft) dead snake-like fish was found in the city of Oceanside - five days after another and larger specimen (5.5m) had been found.
Reports on social media recall an ancient Japanese myth linking extremely rare oarfish sightings to tremors.
But scientists remain sceptical of any link to increased tectonic activity.
The fish was brought to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego They remain puzzled, however, by the two discoveries of this rare deepwater fish near the beach.
The larger specimen, found on Santa Catalina island, has now been dissected and it appears well-fed, healthy and with little sign of disease.
"It looks good enough to eat - if you have a 13ft pan," biologist Ruff Zetter said.
Tests are also being done for radiation, following Japan's Fukushima nuclear leak on the other side of the Pacific.
But it is also a rare chance to gather information about a little-known species that hovers vertically in the ocean and grazes on passing proteins.
The elusive fish - which can grow up to 15m - dives to depth of up to 1,000m and is found in all temperate to tropical waters
ah ha.. another monster from the deep.. lives at 1000 feet and below
why are these things surfacing now..or is it we only hear of them now with the web
or
is something else going on..
volcanos erupting, comets charging the sun, sea monsters trying to surface
bwhahahahahahah.. it's the end i tell ya.. the end.. ::)
:P
http://now.msn.com/hookskate-sea-creature-rarely-seen-caught-off-miami-beach-coast-by-mark-quartiano
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Look what terrifying thing showed up off the coast of Miami Beach
23 hrs ago
Capt. Mark Quartiano just provided us all with our weekly "horrifying things that show up in our waters and on our beaches" fix. The fisherman, otherwise known as "Mark the Shark," was trolling the waters off Miami Beach, Florida to shoot a series for a Japanese television network when, appropriately enough, he pulled up the bizarre-looking sea creature shown above. Quartiano claims that it's a Dactylobatus clarkii, or hookskate, a marine beast that usually hangs out at the bottom of the ocean and is rarely seen. Whatever it is/was, it was tagged and released back into the sea. Which means we've got more "horrifying things that show up in our waters and on our beaches" to look forward to next week. [Sourcehttp://miami.cbslocal.com/2013/11/25/bizarre-sea-creature-caught-off-miami-beach/]
well at least he put it back
Probably died from its bladder rupturing.its the thought that counts.lol.big skate.