Dinosaur Like Fish Captured in Norway

A 19-year-old angler, never thought of becoming so popular in a day, but when he caught a rare, bizarre-looking fish while fishing off the coast of Norway and posted its photo on social media, it soon became viral, making him popular in a day. 

Oscar Lundahl, a guide for the fishing company Nordic Sea Angling was stunned when he first saw his catch, the fish. The odd-looking creature, which had huge bulging eyes but a tiny body in comparison to its eye looks more like a Dinosaur.

Lundahl later revealed that he was actually looking for a blue halibut near Andoya Island when he found this alien-like fish that shocked him for a moment. It is because the fish had enormous eyes, which looked out of proportion when compared to its relatively smaller body. 

Lundahl described his catch as, “It was pretty amazing. I have never seen anything like it before. It just looked weird, a bit dinosaur-like” adding, “We were looking for blue halibut which is a rare species about five miles off shore. I had four hooks on one line and felt something quite big on the end of it. It took me about 30 minutes to reel it in”.

Though Lundahl was initially not sure about the type of the fish it actually is, his colleague identified it as a ratfish. Ratfish live deep in the water and are rarely caught. 

According to records, this is a kind of fish, which has been around for over 300 million years. The fish are harmless to human and prefer to live on sea snails and crabs. They prefer to stay in deep water and it is believed that due to this they have developed large eyes that help them to see in the dark.

Meanwhile, The Sun reports, the fish is actually a ratfish, a relative of the shark that dates back 300 million years. Interestingly, the ratfish also has a Latin name - Chimaeras Monstrosa Linnaeus. The name is derived from a Greek mythological monster, which had a tail of a dragon and head of a lion.

But the fish caught by Oscar Lundahl didn’t survive for long, maybe due to the change in pressure. So, later, Lundahl consumed the fish. “Despite its ugly appearance it was really tasty. It is a bit like cod but tastier,” he informed.

This is not the first time that a bizarre sea creature has been caught by someone. A few weeks ago, a video of an ‘alien’ orange sea creature with multiple tentacles was caught, a picture of which went viral on social media, collecting over a million views.