A Newfoundland fisherman is still in shock after pulling a very strange fish out of the sea. One so odd looking that he had to turn to social media for help.
Garry Goodyear was out fishing for turbot on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada when his nets hauled in a very weird creature, one he thought looked a bit like a platypus.
“We’re hauling away, and by and by, I seen this coming around the roller. I said, ‘Good God! What in the heck was that?'” Goodyear told CBC.
The fishermen were puzzled by what they saw. It was around a meter long, had a big snout, and fins that looked like wings. Its nose “was almost like rubber” said Goodyear.
No one on the ship could identify the fish, so Goodyear posted it to Facebook and learned it was a long-nosed chimaera. The chimaera is a deepwater species completely made of cartilage. It also turns out to have a venomous spine.
“We didn’t know it had a spine with venom in it,” said Goodyear. “It was just another fish to us … and we were handling that with bare hands!”
The deep sea fish lives 200 to 1000 meters deep in the ocean. Goodyear’s net was down around 800 meters deep, which is probably why the fishermen pulled it up. But because of the water pressure change, the chimaera was dead.
In the video below, Goodyear describes what it was like to see the fish for the first time and what he ended up doing with the fish.
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