\u201cIt was fantastic,\u201d she said, although not realising what it was. \u201cI just knew it was something unusual and weird.\u201d But her find was quickly identified as an oarfish when she posted a photo on the Citizen Scientists of Tasmania social media page.<\/p>\n
\u201cIts exceptionally unusual to see anything like that,\u201d said assoc prof Neville Barrett, a marine ecologist at the University of Tasmania. Oarfish are an \u201cepipelagic\u201d species, he said, living in the open ocean at mid-water depths of 150 to 500m, from where they are rarely seen or caught.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just not out there,\u201d Barrett said. \u201cWe\u2019re not looking, we\u2019re not diving, we\u2019re not even fishing in that part of the ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oarfish are \u201ca phenomenally big fish\u201d he said, which can weigh more than 400kg. He described them as a lazy fish with very little muscle that tends to float around, often vertically in the water, eating various types of plankton.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re not active feeders. They don\u2019t chase their prey. They\u2019re just nibbling on whatever\u2019s there. So they don\u2019t have to be very strong, or great swimmers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Very few people have seen an oarfish in the wild. Marine biologist Jorja Gilmore is \u201cone of the lucky ones\u201d.<\/p>\n In 2022, she was leading a small tour group of snorkellers on the Great Barrier Reef near Port Douglas when they spotted something strange in the water below them.<\/p>\n This one was a juvenile, long and thin like a ruler, with tendrils that made it look a bit like a giant lure, Gilmore said.<\/p>\n