LOS ANGELES (AP) — October 22, 2013 — A 14-foot oarfish that washed ashore in Southern California last week was ready to become a mommy.
The serpent-like fish — one of two discovered along the coast last week — was dissected Monday and marine biologists found that the healthy female was ripe to spawn, H.J. Walker of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography said Tuesday.
The silvery fish’s 6-foot-long ovaries contained hundreds of thousands of eggs that were nearly ready to be released, Walker said.
The fish had lost its tail somehow while alive and it had disc-shaped wounds from cookiecutter sharks, but those injuries wouldn’t have been deadly, Walker said.
In fact, it’s unclear why the creature died, although Walker said it was possible the deep-water fish came too close to the surface, where it may have been knocked around by waves.
The oarfish washed up on a beach in the San Diego County coastal city of Oceanside on Friday. Several days earlier, a snorkeler found the carcass of an 18-foot oarfish off Catalina Island and dragged it to shore with some help.
The cause of death for the larger fish also remains a mystery.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Boston Globe