Rare, Comical Live Fish Washes Up on Seaside, Oregon Beach

The odd but somewhat endearing fish appeared to enjoy the spotlight.

Photos courtesy: PR Monster/Andre' Hagestedt

(SEASIDE, Ore.) - Another rare find from the deep has the crew at the Seaside Aquarium buzzing. The fish is cute and bizarre at the same time, and usually lives too deep in the ocean to show up on land.

A group of kids from Oregon City brought in a three-foot-long Spotted Ratfish Saturday, which they had found on the southern cove area of Seaside - still alive.

“They brought it up to a lifeguard at one of the stations and asked what to do with it,” said aquarium spokesperson Tiffany Boothe. “They told them to bring it here.”

The spotted ratfish’s technical name is Hydrolagus colliei, and is named a ratfish for its rat-like appearance. It is sometimes called a rabbit fish because of the visual similarity there as well.

It exists between SE Alaska and Baha, California, normally living at depths of 3,000 feet, although it is found in shallower waters off the Oregon coast, at around 15 feet to 65 feet.

“Fishermen sometimes bring them in here when they accidentally catch them,” Boothe said. “We’ve had them in here before. But it’s really very rare they wash up on the beach.”

Boothe said the ratfish had a visible sore on one of its fins, and she believes it will die.

“At one point, it got stuck upside down and couldn’t right itself,” Boothe said. “If it was in the wild and that happened, then it would be eaten pretty fast. It wouldn’t survive.

Boothe said it may live now that it’s in captivity. It may only need rest and the sore will heal. If it does live, they will put it on display. For now, it is cloistered in a holding tank.

Boothe said “Hydrolagus” means water hare in greek, because of the rabbit-like appearance. “Colliei” honors M. Collie, a naturalist.

The odd but somewhat endearing fish appeared to enjoy the spotlight a bit as Boothe photographed it in its holding tank.

It almost seemed to pose as Boothe clicked away. Depending on the angle, it could resemble a duck or some Disney cartoon character.

A ratfish’s skin has no scales, but has some white spots amidst the usual brown. The males have a tenaculum, club-like structure in their foreheads. There are pits all over the front snout area which are used for detecting electrical fields.

Boothe determined this one was a male.

“They live in a wide variety of habitats, including sand, mud, rocky reefs,” Boothe said. “They also feed on a lot of different kind of invertebrates. They’ll eat worms, brittlestars, sea stars, clams and shrimp. But in turn they’re eaten by sharks, dogfish, halibut, elephant seals and fur seals.”

Boothe said one was found drifting around a Columbia River estuary once, apparently quite lost.

Their spines are slightly poisonous, but the toxin doesn’t affect everyone. Eating their ovaries is also dangerous as they are quite toxic, but otherwise the fish is edible, with a reportedly bland, slightly mushy taste.

Many of their parts have been found in native shell middens in the Washington area.