A marine science instructor discovered an 18-foot-long giant sea creature known as oarfish off the coast of Catalina Island in Southern California.
Jasmine Santana, a member of the Catalina Island Marine Institute, found the silver serpent-like sea creature while snorkeling 15-feet underwater in Toyon Bay. Santana said that she was afraid to touch the oarfish, but when she realized that it was dead, she tried her best to bring the dead oarfish back on shore.
"I was thinking, 'What could this be?' It's so big! We usually don't have anything that long in our bay. We snorkel here almost daily, so it's crazy to find this," said Santana in an interview with the New York Daily News.
Knowing that her colleagues will only believe her if she can bring the giant sea creature on the shore, Santana said that she dragged the giant sea creature for more than 15 minutes before asking help from 14 helpers to get the dead fish out of the water.
According to the CIMI, oarfish is the longest bony fish in the world that could grow more than 50 feet. It has been rarely studied because oarfish usually reside more than 3,000 feet underwater.
"Oarfish are found in all temperate to tropical waters, but are rarely seen, dead or alive. It is believed that oarfish dive over 3,000 feet deep, which leave them largely unstudied and little is known about their behavior or population," the CIMI said in a release as reported by CNN.
Mark Waddington, a CIMI senior captain, said that it remains to be seen why the oarfish was found in such shallow waters, but they are quite sure that the giant oarfish died naturally.
Waddington added that the carcass of the oarfish will be preserved until they can find the maximum way of keeping the scientific value of their discovery. The CIMI said that they could bury the oarfish and let critters eat its meat, and then they will preserve the skeleton of the sea creature.
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