oarfish (a natural list, no. 14)

not a sea serpent; potential harbinger of doom

You’re reading a natural list, a series in which I (an amateur naturalist) share three delightful things every other week about an animal, plant, or fungus native to California along with an original illustration. It’s by no means an exhaustive list of delightful things, but it’s a start.

This series was inspired by the common tradition of naturalists keeping “life lists” that document the species they’ve seen throughout their lifetimes, and it’ll run as long as it takes to get through every California native species (which is to say, buckle in, because there are over 6,500 plants alone).

This is a bit of a special edition of this series. It’s hard to call the species we’re talking about today a “California native” because its home is the deep open ocean and they’ve washed up on beaches all over the world, BUT: One literally JUST showed up off the coast of La Jolla, where I went to school. I found myself itching to draw this amazing creature, and … well, here we are.

Without further ado, meet the oarfish — vertical swimmer, not a sea serpent, potential harbinger of doom.

The first thing that shows up in the Wikipedia entry for the oarfish delights me to no end.