That's an oarfish, and lucky for the clowns in the picture, it's a dead one. Up until now this is the only way these things have been seen, either washed up on shore or floating belly-up in the waves. But scientists working in the Gulf of Mexico have captured what is believed to be the first footage of the oarfish, which can reach lengths of 17 meters - that's 55 feet to us non-metric users; go ahead, do the math - alive and in its natural habitat. Namely, the bottom of the ocean. The footage was recorded by a remotely operated vehicle, or ROV, under the direction of Mark Benfield of Louisiana State University working in conjunction with, of all people, a group of oil companies "such as BP, Shell, Chevron and Petrobras working in the Gulf of Mexico." Filming in the vicinity of an offshore oil platform, Benfield caught footage of the oarfish purely by chance:
"We saw this bright vertical shiny thing, I said 'are they lowering more riser?' as it looked like they were lowering a huge pipe."
"We zoomed in a little bit and we said 'that's not a riser that's a fish!'"
"As we approached it retreated downwards swimming tail first in a vertical orientation as the ROV followed," Professor Benfield explained.
The BBC has the story as well as the video, which might as well be the inside of somebody's fish tank, as clear as it is. Still, we can't help but be moved, and not in a pleasant way, by a development such as this. We've always been wary of what lies hidden in the murky depths of " target="_blank">the ocean, and the knowledge that fifty-foot fish that "provided the basis for the sea serpent myths told by early ocean travellers" are swimming around down there doesn't exactly set our minds at ease. For more along these lines, see this chart, also by BBC, illustrating the various monstrosities populating the seafloor or "beyond the abyss," as they choose to call it. Keep an eye out for favorites like the hairy angler, below:
Yeah. Pretty much the stuff of nightmares. As always, we will think long and hard before we step foot into that ocean again.
very deep TROUGH