Rare 'harbinger of doom' creature washes up on beach with terrifying warning to the world
A rare fish whose appearance ashore is commonly thought to be a very bad omen has been spotted on an Australian beach.
Despite the ocean making up over 70 percent of the Earth's surface, we've only explored five percent of it.
It's an eerie considering how many creepy and unsettling sea creatures that we have discovered so far, especially in deeper areas.
One of these is known as the oarfish, a large and long species of fish that usually lives anywhere from 200m to 1,000m below the ocean's surface.
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Following storms or injuries, the species can be found washed upon shores by humans, though they are an extremely rare sighting.
It's believed by some that they can be a bad omen when spotted outside their natural habitat.
People believe that oarfish are linked to seismic activity, often surfacing before large earthquakes.
While Japanese mythology also links the fish's sighting outside its natural habitat to catastrophic events, this isn't strictly true, despite many being spotted prior to the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in the East Asian nation.
They're even known as 'doomsday' fish, or 'harbingers of doom' - not to be dramatic.
Nevertheless, a 2019 study said the suspected link between oarfish and earthquakes was 'illusory'.
But on Monday (2 June), Sybil Robertson was walking her dog on the Western coast of Tasmania, along Ocean Beach, when she came across the rare fish.
Oarfish can grow up to lengths of 36 feet (110m), though on average, they are around nine to 10 feet (2.7m - 3m) in length.
She took to Facebook to share snaps of the glimmering silver creature with colouring on its head, which was washed up on the beach.
Not knowing that the fish was rare at first, she admitted to MailOnline: "It was fantastic. I just knew it was something unusual and weird."
Robertson admitted that her attention was only drawn to the fish after spotting an eagle circling the creature.
Speaking to ABC, she added: "I could see it was a long fish but I had no idea what kind of fish,
"As I got closer, I could see the beautiful colouring around its head and the markings on it were fabulous."
Despite spotting a few injuries, she said it looked in good condition, and noted that it was a 'good three paces' in length.
Taking to social media group 'Citizen Scientists of Tasmania', it was confirmed that she had found an oarfish, a rare spotting in Australia.
Dr Neville Barrett, a fish biologist and associate professor with the University of Tasmania's Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, spoke to ABC about the finding, adding that 'there's not many reportings at all.'
He noted that there have been 'at least 70 records' of the creature washing up on shore.
Experts from The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) were quickly on the scene to take samples of the fish, before hungry birds got their way.
Joshua Nair