Scientists with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Southwest Fisheries Science Center performed a necropsy (an animal version of an autopsy) on the smaller oarfish that washed up north of San Diego. Russ Vetter, a NOAA biologist, said in a podcast from the agency that the fish was quite fresh and seems to have stranded shortly before it died.
Vetter suspects the creatures may have been carried closer to shore by a strong ocean current, which the oarfish, being poor swimmers, could not escape. Though they resemble the fearsome sea serpents of folklore, a recent video of a live oarfish in the Gulf of Mexico revealed that the fish are actually quite motionless in their natural habitat; they use paddlelike fins that help them balance as their snakelike bodies hover vertically in the water.
Growing more than 30 feet (9 m) long, oarfish are the world's longest bony fish, a group that includes almost all fish except sharks and rays. (Whale sharks are the largest of all fish.) Further examination of the preserved tissue samples of the beached fish could help scientists uncover more secrets about the species.
"With careful chemical analysis of the lipids and the proteins, we should be able to tell what its diet is and where it fits in the food chain," Vetter said in the podcast, adding that DNA will allow scientists to examine how the oarfish evolved and how the fish is related to other species.
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