A pair of fisherman have caught a terrifying ‘doomsday fish’ in what is a rare sighting of the deep-sea creature with a bizarre head shape.
Finding fish in the sea is hardly breaking news, I mean they do live down there at the end of the day.
But the fish we are talking about here are far from ordinary, largely due to its bizarre head shape and ungodly size.
The fish, which was captured off the coast of Melville Island, part of the Tiwi Islands, has been dubbed the ‘doomsday fish’. And I think that nickname says a lot as to what we are dealing with here.
The ‘doomsday fish’ (Facebook/Fishing Australia TV)
The gigantic creature was captured by Curtis Peterson of Tiwi Islands Adventures during a moonlight fishing sessions recently.
And his find has gone viral in recent days after it was shared to the Fishing Australia TV Facebook page earlier this week.
A picture of the fish itself has also been shared to Reddit, with many, perhaps unsurprisingly, weighing in to offer their opinion.
“That fish looks straight out of a sci-fi movie!” one person commented, while a second commented: “I will always think it’s wrong to see people proudly pose with dead animals, especially when they’re rare.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this before, what a fascinating creature!” a third remarked.
While many online are dubbing the water creature the ‘doomsday fish’, the fish it’s actually believed to be is the Oarfish.
The fish is believed to be a oarfish (Eric Broder Van Dyke / Getty)
The fish has been seen across the world, but they typically reside at depths of up to 1,000 metres, making a sighting of them extremely rare.
Oarfish are most often found already dead washed ashore, which provides a sad reminder of the likelihood of a sighting.
Speaking of the recent discovery down under, NT News fishing columnist Alex Julius said: “It’s the first time I’ve ever heard someone land a fish like that up here. It’s also very rare to land one of these fish, most being found washed up ashore already deceased.”
And while you’d think the term ‘doomsday fish’ would have been made up by some person on the internet, it actually has a bit of ancient folklore to it.
According to Business Standard, the term came about after sightings of the Oarfish were often because of a natural disaster in countries like Japan.
