Photo credit: CHARLOTTE CURD/FAIRFAX NZ
Two friends were recently jogging along a beach near New Plymouth, New Zealand when they spotted something from a nightmare.
Nik Pyselman and his friend Cam Twigley found a rare longsnouted lancetfish.
“It looked like it had been washed in and was struggling to swim back out to sea,” Pyselman told New Zealand’s Taranaki Daly News.
“I’ve heard of people catching them on long lines but I’ve never seen one myself.”
“I’ve also heard them called cannibal fish before because they eat their own kind.”
Pyselman took the fish to local fish market where it was identified as a longsnout lancetfish.
“They’re generally caught in deep water over 1000 meters deep,” said Keith Mawson of Egmont Seafoods.
“It’s very unusual to see one in this shallow.”
According to the Taranaki Daily News report, Lancetfish grow up to about two-meters long and this one was a mature 1.5 meters.
Sightings of lancetfish are rare and some are speculating the El Nino weather phenomenon are drawing the deep-dwellers closer to shore.
Barry Govier said he had been a fisherman for more than 20 years but said he’d never seen a lancetfish.
“Fishermen usually catch them on the long line while fishing for tuna,” he said.
“It could be the El Nino bringing in some unusual weather patterns.”
“Were starting to see a lot of deep sea fish like bluefin tuna start to move in a bit closer.”
H/T: Stuff.co.nz