{"id":7366,"date":"2013-10-15T07:56:23","date_gmt":"2013-10-15T12:56:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/?p=7366"},"modified":"2013-10-15T07:56:23","modified_gmt":"2013-10-15T12:56:23","slug":"oarfish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/?p=7366","title":{"rendered":"OARFISH"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Catalina marine science instructor finds 18-foot oarfish<\/h1>\n
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In the late afternoon of Sunday October 13th, 2013, Catalina Island Marine Institute instructors returned home to find an 18-foot-long oarfish in the crystal waters of Toyon Bay. (Submitted photo)\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n
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By Nadra Nittle,\u00a0nadra.nittle@langnews.com<\/a>,\u00a0@NadraKareem<\/a>on Twitter<\/p>\n

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\"\"The head of the 18-foot-long oarfish found by Catalina Island Marine Institute instructors in Toyon Bay in the late afternoon of Sunday October 13th, 2013. (Submitted photo)<\/div>\n

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A marine science instructor has made what\u2019s being called the discovery of a lifetime: She found an 18-foot-long oarfish Sunday in Toyon Bay on Catalina Island.<\/p>\n

While snorkeling, Jasmine Santana of the Catalina Island Marine Institute discovered the obscure fish, which had evidently died of natural causes. When she reached the bottom of the bay, she spotted a silver creature with eyes the size of half-dollars.<\/p>\n

Santana\u2019s colleagues saw her struggling to move the dead animal and came to her aid, ultimately discovering that it would take 15 people to move the animal to the beach.<\/p>\n

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Mark Johnson, a longtime CIMI staffer, said in a statement that he\u2019d yet to witness such a sight during his tenure at the institute.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 32 years here, I have never seen anything like this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Because oarfish dive more than 3,000 feet deep, sightings of the creatures are rare, according to CIMI. Oarfish have the distinction of being the longest bony fish species, CIMI reports.<\/p>\n

Officials from the institute sent tissue samples and footage of the oarfish to an expert at UC Santa Barbara, where the species of the creature will be determined.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Catalina marine science instructor finds 18-foot oarfish In the late afternoon of Sunday October 13th, 2013, Catalina Island Marine Institute instructors returned home to find an 18-foot-long oarfish in the crystal waters of Toyon Bay. (Submitted photo)\u00a0 By Nadra Nittle,\u00a0nadra.nittle@langnews.com,\u00a0@NadraKareemon Twitter POSTED:\u00a010\/14\/13, 3:25 PM PDT\u00a0|\u00a0UPDATED: 8 HRS AGO The head of the 18-foot-long oarfish … Continue reading OARFISH<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[865],"tags":[2545],"class_list":["post-7366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","tag-nature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7366"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7367,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7366\/revisions\/7367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}