Monster Oarfish Beachings Raise Earthquake Questions

[jakeXT]

A series of serpent-like sea creatures have recently been found washed up on California beaches, leading some scientists to speculate that an ancient myth about the fish portending earthquakes could be true.

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A centuries-old Japanese myth holds that oarfish beach themselves prior to an earthquake. One 2010 report found that some Japanese feared an earthquake in that country following oarfish sightings prior to destructive tremors in Chile and Haiti.

The fish, believed to be the ocean’s largest scaled fish, also washed up in the months before the 2011 earthquake and tsunami near Sendai, Japan.


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“I don’t discredit or disrespect the Japanese theory at all,” Pat Abbott, a seismologist at San Diego State University told reporters. “The science and study just isn’t there. There’s a big difference between suggesting something like that and proving it. What did an animal sense that maybe we didn’t that told them about a coming event?”

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http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2013/10/can-monster-oarfish-really-predict-earthquakes/

[dipsydoodle]

1. California ‘sea serpent’ oarfish was healthy female carrying hundreds of thousands of eggs.

LOS ANGELES — A 14-foot oarfish that washed ashore in Southern California last week was ready to become a mommy.

The serpent-like fish — one of two discovered along the coast last week — was dissected Monday and marine biologists found that the healthy female was ripe to spawn, H.J. Walker of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography said Tuesday.

The silvery fish’s 6-foot-long ovaries contained hundreds of thousands of eggs that were nearly ready to be released, Walker said.

The fish had lost its tail somehow while alive and it had disc-shaped wounds from cookiecutter sharks, but those injuries wouldn’t have been deadly, Walker said.

In fact, it’s unclear why the creature died, although Walker said it was possible the deep-water fish came too close to the surface, where it may have been knocked around by waves.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/energy-environment/california-sea-serpent-oarfish-was-healthy-female-carrying-hundreds-of-thousands-of-eggs/2013/10/22/b3936e6e-3b7a-11e3-b0e7-716179a2c2c7_story.html

[Vincardog]

2. What did an animal sense that maybe we didn’t that told them about a coming event?” EXACTLY the

Question a scientist would ask. Pat doesn't seem to give any credit to the fish's senses.