A group of kayakers and snorkelers were enjoying a relaxing day in California’s La Jolla Cove earlier this month when they spotted something unusual floating atop the water: the body of an enormous fish that usually lives as far as 3,280 feet below the surface. The out-of-place creature was an oarfish ( Regalecus glesne ), a long, slender, serpent-like fish that typically inhabits deep-sea, open-ocean environments. This particular oarfish measured 12 feet long—though the biggest of the species can grow up to 36 feet long .
It’s one of just 20 oarfish that have washed up in California since 1901, according to a Facebook post from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego. After finding the carcass on August 10, the friends—many of whom work in marine science—contacted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Fisheries Service and California Sea Grant (a collaboration between the federal government, the state of California and California’s universities). With help from those two organizations, along with lifeguards and some passing paddleboarders, the group successfully transported the fish to shore and took it to a NOAA facility.
“Our small group had the mission of getting this unwieldy animal to the kayak launch,” says kayaker Emily Miller , a researcher at California Sea Grant, to the San Diego Union-Tribune ’s Maura Fox. “It was a community effort to get a rare specimen to scientists. .
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