I noticed that the Australian Museum Fish Site, home of Eternal Recurrence favorite Mr. Blobby, have been popping up a few times in the news recently. The first was in the form of a rapidly spreading hoax email sent after the tsunami disaster. The email included photos of many very unusual creatures and claimed they had washed up during the flood. In fact, they were lifted from the NORFANZ deep sea expedition site without permission. The NORFANZ site has many more photos and details about these amazing fish.
More recently, BoingBoing linked to this story about a ribbon oarfish found on an Australian beach. The oarfish is the longest known bony fish, by some reports growing up to 17 m in length. It prefers the deep but occasionally appears on the surface; some surmise that it’s behind sea serpent legends appearing in marine lore. Once again, the Australian Fish Museum Site has a good page dedicated to it.
Finally, since it’s been a while since I did an odd fish update here, I once again checked in with Mark McGrouther (thanks, Mark!) to see if he’s put up anything new at the Australian Museum. He noted that there hadn’t been any recent toothy fishes of the sort that tend to capture people’s attention, but pointed me to the newest update, the ribbon barracudina. The Museum’s complete listing is here and is also fun to browse.
Bonus fish: the museum’s page on the famous Coelacanth.
[Note 2/23/05: Links corrected.]
Jacob Grier is a freelance writer, bartender, cocktail consultant, and magician in Portland, Oregon. He writes, eats, and drinks a lot. His articles have appeared in the print or online editions of The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Times, Reason, The Oregonian, and other publications.
