In the deep sea, there is a mysterious creature called oarfish

From a literal point of view, many people may mistakenly think that oarfish is a certain species of cutlassfish. People who have never heard of it may think that it is called oarfish because it is delicious or more nutritious than other cutlassfish. In fact, the oarfish is not a cutlassfish. As a mysterious deep-sea creature, probably not many people have seen it, let alone dare to eat it.

Oarfish Introduction

The oarfish is also known as Brunhilde, commonly known as the messenger of the Dragon Palace, the White Dragon King, the Dragon King Fish, the big oarfish, the big herring king, the paddlefish, the fat fish, the buy cow, the barbarian, the pig spirit, the hundred cows, and the earthquake fish. It is one of the species in the oarfish family of the order Lunaeformes of the class Actinopterygii. Widely distributed in tropical deep seas. It is the longest bony fish in the ocean, with a bright silver body and red, paddle-shaped pelvic fins. Its original English name is "paddle fish". The dorsal fin is also red and very long, starting from the top of the head like a mane. It is rarely seen on the water surface, and some people occasionally see it and mistake it for a "sea snake". People usually think of them as monsters that sweep across the seabed, destroying everything.

Although the word "cutlassfish" is included in its name, this long fish is not the king of cutlassfish. In fact, the oarfish and cutlassfish have no relationship. Cutlassfish belongs to the order Perciformes and the family Ocellidae, while the oarfish belongs to the order Opapulates and the family Oarfish.

Oarfish is commonly known as Oarfish in English. This family is very small (in fact, the order Oppaiformes itself is not large). There are only two genera and four species under the Oarfish family, namely the oarfish (R. glesne), Kin's oarfish (R. kinoi), Russel's oarfish (R. russelii) of the genus Regalecus, and the long-bodied oarfish (A. parkeri) of the genus Agrostichthys. In a narrow sense, oarfish refers only to the oarfish (R. glesne). Except for ichthyologists, ordinary people generally do not distinguish between species that look too similar, so the four species of Oarfish can be collectively called Oarfish. Even fish that belong to the same order as the oarfish, the family Ovalchiidae and the family Trachyopterygii, are sometimes called oarfish because they look similar to the oarfish.

The longest bony fish

Although there are relatively few species of oarfish, they hold a world record among bony fish: they are the longest bony fish in the world. Reliable measurements show that oarfish can reach up to 11 meters in length. Some unconfirmed records are even longer than this; in 1808 an oarfish washed up on a Scottish beach was said to be 17 meters long. An oarfish washed up on the coast of California, USA in 1996, about 7.0 meters long.

Of course, we cannot directly say that they are the longest fish, because there are whale sharks and basking sharks in the cartilaginous fish group that can exceed 11 meters in length, but they are undoubtedly the longest among the bony fish group.

How many years does it take for an oarfish to grow to this size?

How many years does it take for an oarfish to grow to this size? This involves the issue of determining the age of fish. It’s really not easy to explain the oarfish. Generally speaking, a more useful method to determine the age of a fish is to count the growth rings of its scales or otoliths. But unfortunately, oarfish do not have scales, and it is not easy to count the annual rings of otoliths. In 2016, two American ichthyologists reported their attempts in a research paper. They successfully removed otoliths from a 5.5-meter-long oarfish, but the annual rings on the otoliths were not easy to observe, so the attempt to use the otoliths ended in failure. But they counted 6-7 growth rings from sections of the oarfish's pelvic fin rays and dorsal fin spines. In other words, it is possible that this 5.5-meter-long oarfish took 6-7 years to grow. This is the only attempt to date to study the age of oarfish. The 6-meter oarfish that the questioner asked about would probably take at least 6-7 years.