'Twilight Zone' fish with fangs found on Oregon beach. 'I wouldn't touch it'
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An strange deep-sea fish washed up on the Oregon shore recently, but it didn't surprise the fish nerds at the Seaside Aquarium.
The crew at the aquarium were familiar with the fish, which had fanged teeth within a wide mouth and measured nearly 5 feet long, as a longnose lancetfish. Known to swim as deep as over a mile below the ocean's surface, lancetfish typically live in warmer waters, but do migrate as far north as the Bering Sea, according to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
That makes the Pacific Northwest coast a potential waypoint for lancetfish.
"We get about a half dozen in our area a year," said Tiffany Boothe, assistant manager at the Seaside Aquarium in Seaside, Oregon. "It doesn't look like a very friendly fish. If I saw that fish alive, I wouldn't touch it."
Earlier in the week, a customer came into the aquarium gift shop and showed the staff a picture of a fish he had found on the beach and wondered if they could identify it, Boothe said.
"When he showed us the picture, it was such a fresh, great specimen that we were like, 'Sweet, we're gonna go pick it up,'" said Boothe, who said she's among the "fish nerds" at the aquarium.
The lancetfish has "gelatinous flesh that the seagulls just absolutely go crazy after," Boothe said. "So it's kind of hard to find ones that are fresh and that intact."
Washed-up lancetfish had entire fish in its stomach
As Boothe and others at the aquarium learned more about the lancetfish, they discovered that the fish have a digestive system that is "really, really slow. So when you look at their stomach contents you find whole fish, squids ... you see things you wouldn't normally see."
So, of course, the Seaside Aquarium fish nerds had to see what was in this latest lancetfish's stomach. They posted the results on their Facebook page.
Among the findings: Several squid and octopus remains, as well as entire fish.
"By studying what the longnose lancetfish is eating, scientists can better understand how the marine food web changes over time (if at all). It may also help understand changes in the food web brought on by events like El Nino or La Nina," the aquarium wrote in the Facebook post.
Lancetfish facts
The lancetfish is known as a "Twilight Zone" fish because the depths where it hunts are known as the twilight zone, or mesopelagic zone, according to NOAA. More facts about the lancetfish:
The lancetfish, which can grow to more than 7 feet long, has a "dinosaur-worthy scientific genus name," which is Alepisaurus, meaning "scaleless lizard."
Adding to the lancetfish's prehistoric look are the fanged jaws, large eyes, sail-like fin, and a long, slithery eel-like body.
While other fish, sharks and seals will eat lancetfish, humans usually do not because the gelatinous flesh is watery and unappetizing.
In addition to eating other fish, squid and octopus, lancetfish are cannibalistic and will feed on other lancetfish.
Since lancetfish are usually deep-sea dwellers, they aren't known to be a danger to humans. But the lancetfish may "get into feeding frenzies and not only will they eat each other, but sometimes they'll whip around and they actually gash themselves" Boothe said.
The aquarium has never been able to keep a lancetfish alive for more than an hour or so, but do have the first one found by the staff in the 1990s mounted after it was preserved by a taxidermist.
"It's actually very beautiful," Boothe said.
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