A silver ribbon several meters long with a red crest on its head, the oarfish lives in the open ocean, far below the surface, and is almost only seen when a sick or dying one drifts to shore. Baja California Sur has a surprising number of records, starting with a 4.7 m fish that showed up at a La Paz hotel beach in 1988.
Unmistakable: a long, flat, scaleless, ribbon-like silver body with dark streaks and spots, and a bright red dorsal fin running the full length of the back. On the head the dorsal fin rises into a crest of long red rays; each pelvic fin is a single, very long ray ending in a paddle-like tip, the “oar” of its name. The mouth is small, toothless and can shoot forward. Large adults have no tail fin: the body ends in a healed stump.
Oarfish are open-ocean fishes that live well below the surface and come near shore only rarely. The taxonomy is still unsettled: a 2012 revision recognized two species, Regalecus glesne and R. russelii, and FishBase lists R. russelii for the Pacific, including Baja California, while Mexican researchers have reported the 2021 La Paz specimen as R. glesne. The first oarfish recorded in Mexican waters came from the Gulf of California in 1985, and several more have been found on the beaches of La Paz Bay since.
They are often seen hanging vertically, head up, with the crest rays raised and the pelvic rays spread out; researchers think this posture helps them spot the silhouettes of prey against the light from above. They eat krill, small fish and squid, sucking in water with their toothless, protrusible jaws and straining it through long gill rakers. They spawn in open water with no parental care, and larvae have been found near the surface. Oarfish carry parasites whose adult stages live in large sharks and sperm whales, a sign that these predators eat them.
Japanese folklore says oarfish come ashore before earthquakes. Seismologists from Tokai University compared 336 deep-sea fish appearances with 221 earthquakes of magnitude 6 or more in Japan between 1928 and 2011 and found only one event that could plausibly be linked.
Source ↗On the night of May 28, 1988, sportfishing crews at a hotel in La Paz Bay lassoed a dying 4.7 m, 70–80 kg oarfish as it reached the beach. Scientists at CIBNOR described it as a new species, Regalecus kinoi; it is now considered the same species as R. russelii.
Source ↗Oarfish amputate the rear of their body, sometimes several times in their life, without damaging any vital organs. The lost part never grows back, so every oarfish longer than about 1.5 m ends in a healed stump.
Source ↗On Isla Santa Catalana, in the Gulf of California, researchers recorded a Panamic green moray feeding on an oarfish by entering through its mouth and eating it from within, the first predation of this oarfish by a moray ever documented.
Source ↗In 2020, Japanese researchers fertilized eggs from a pair of recently dead mature oarfish. The eggs needed 18 days at 20.5–22.5 °C to hatch; the larvae swam head-down using their pectoral fins and lived four days.
Source ↗An oarfish found at La Jolla Cove, California, in August 2024 was only the 20th documented washing ashore in California since 1901. It was a 3.7 m adult male weighing 33.7 kg.
Source ↗Oarfish are not a sport fish, and charter crews almost never see one offshore. Most local encounters are strandings or weak fish swimming at the edge of the beach. News reports from 2025 described a small live oarfish at Playa El Quemado, Baja California Sur, in February, another at Balandra near La Paz in May, and two injured specimens of about 3.7 m in August that died soon after being found. Scientists note that oarfish seen at the surface are usually sick, dying or disoriented.
If you find one, take photos with something for scale, note the place, date and length, and contact local researchers in La Paz, who have studied several of these specimens. Oarfish are harmless and toothless, but don’t drag a live one by its fins, which are fragile. Don’t eat it: the flesh is considered tasteless, and one stranded in La Paz Bay carried dozens of tapeworm larvae.
| Mexico (NOM-059) | Not listed (2019 update) |
|---|---|
| Sport fishing | Not a sport species; no specific bag limit, size limit or closed season |
| Commercial fisheries | Of no interest |
| Strandings | No specific protocol; specimens from BCS have gone to researchers at CIBNOR, CICIMAR-IPN and UABCS |
| IUCN Red List | Least Concern (assessed 2014) |
Oarfish strandings in Baja often go viral with earthquake warnings. A 2019 study of 82 years of Japanese records found no reliable link.
Ribbonfishes (Trachipterus) are also silver, flat and red-finned, but much shorter, with a fan-shaped tail fin that points upward. Cutlassfish are silver ribbons too, but they have big fangs and no red crest. The two oarfish species differ in the crest: R. russelii has a single long, ornamented ray behind the first group, R. glesne has 5 to 11.
No. A 2019 study of 336 deep-sea fish appearances and 221 strong earthquakes in Japan from 1928 to 2011 found only one event that could plausibly be linked.
They live in the open Pacific and the Gulf of California, and Baja California Sur has documented strandings, mostly around La Paz. Sightings anywhere in the region are rare.
It isn’t fished in Mexico, its flesh is considered tasteless, and one stranded in La Paz carried dozens of tapeworm larvae. Leave it for the scientists.
Top illustration: Top Anglers. Photos: iNaturalist contributors, credited on each photo.
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