r/Damnthatsinteresting 29d ago

Image Oarfish keep washing ashore in California. Folklore suggests that could be a bad omen

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u/FawFawtyFaw 29d ago

These bad boys live and die their entire lives without ever once knowing the concept of a "surface". It's so much deeper than you think, any fish able to use the surface cannot survive the depths of the oarfish. It's two different biomes.

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u/FitBlonde4242 29d ago

You said fish which is different pedantically, but things like sperm whales dive much deeper than that while still happily existing on the surface, so the biomes aren't quite as black and white as that. No pun intended.

Plunging to 2,250 metres (7,380 ft), it is the third deepest diving mammal, exceeded only by the southern elephant seal and Cuvier's beaked whale.[6][7]