Oddball, Colorful Fish a Rare Find on Oregon Coast Beaches

Published 07/14521 at 4:45 AM PDT
By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff

(Seaside, Oregon) – The call surprised crew from the Seaside Aquarium from the get-go, but when the photos came in they were truly floored. What they found on the beach turned out to be a rarity. (Photos courtesy Seaside Aquarium)

Those working at the north Oregon coast attraction also attend to calls about stranded creatures on the beaches as part of their work with the Marine Mammal Stranding Network. This time around, however, even they were surprised. It turned out be a fish rarely seen on beaches here called a moonfish (or opah). It has a lot in common with the Mola mola – or sunfish – which aren't seen that often on beaches as well. Both are spotted on occasion by fishermen, however, but out at sea.

The creature was long dead, but back at the aquarium it created quite a stir for awhile, according to the aquarium's Tiffany Boothe.

This particular opah was 3.5 feet long and 100 pounds, a rather startling find for Chandler and the crew. After getting a report at 8 a.m. and then seeing photographs, crew quickly responded and recovered the fish.

Boothe said Opah can grow as big as 6 feet long and get over 600 pounds.

“That's a pretty cool find for a Wednesday morning,” said aquarium manager Keith Chandler. He also called it "pretty bizarre.".

“They inhabit pelagic (meaning they live in the open ocean), tropical and temperate waters where they feed on krill and squid,” Boothe said.

“I may have seen one years ago that we got that was caught on a fishing boat – a baby one,” Chandler said. Aside from that, there's no instance of an encounter with the aquarium.

Boothe said its eye was almost three inches wide.

“It is reported that their meat tastes like a mix between tuna and swordfish,” Boothe said.

According to the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), opah is a smart seafood choice as it's managed responsibly and their population is believed to be quite healthy.

The opah is a colorful creature with a lot going on visually. NOAA said the opah's fins and mouths are red, and their eyes are encircled with gold.

Yet not much is known about their biology as they live deep in the ocean, but scientists assume they're much like other palaegic fish. When caught, they're usually about one to six years old, and often a bycatch of fishermen trying to snag swordfish.

“Opah spawn in warm surface waters throughout the year in the tropics and more seasonally in cooler waters,” NOAA said.

This makes them usually residents of places like Hawaii or farther south around California.

So what was this one doing up here? Scientists don't know much about their ecology, Boothe said, but they do have some things in common with the sunfish (Mola mola) that aren’t just visual.

“They come up here from time to time in the summer just like Mola mola,” Boothe said. “Rarely do we see them washed ashore though. They follow their food in the warm water current offshore. We really don’t know how many or how often. Fisherman will see them more frequently than beachgoers.”

She also noted they are one of very few fish that can raise their body temperature above that of the ambient water temperature.

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