What an incredible sighting- two extremely rare oarfish in one video! These guys are very much deep sea fish, so seeing one near the surface can mean that the animal is sick or dying. There are few if any currents in the deeps that oarfish inhabit and as a result they lack the muscle mass needed to navigate shallow waters. They often die shortly after swimming to the surface. It is very strange indeed that this video features not one but two oarfish visible in the shallows. We know very little about the behavior of these animals, so their presence here is pretty mysterious.
One thing that might make me a little nervous if I were the person filming this video is the role of oarfish in Japanese folklore- that is, the harbinger of a massive tsunami. The species’ traditional Japanese name is “Ryugu no tsukai”, a name that describes the fish as a messenger from the palace of the dragon-king, ruler of the sea. A sighting of a giant oarfish is seen in Japanese folklore as a terrible omen of an oncoming tsunami. At least a dozen of these rarely seen fish washed ashore in Japan in late 2009 and 2010, and some connected these sightings with the devastating Tohoku tsunami that hit the country in March of 2011. Pretty ominous stuff, but it may ease your mind to know a team of Japanese researchers studied all reports of oarfish sightings in newspapers from 1928-2011 and found no significant correlation between the mysterious fish and earthquakes in Japan. More likely their presence at the surface has to do with changing temperature and currents in their habitat. The oarfish as a harbinger of doom may be an inaccurate portrayal, but I think we can all agree there is more to this mysterious fish than meets the eye!
