Rare anglerfish spotted on San Diego beach

Rare anglerfish spotted on San Diego beach

By LaMonica Peters

Source: cbs8

11/23/2021

Credit: Jay Beiler

Local scientists are releasing more information about a rare fish recently seen at Blacks Beach.

Researchers say the fish usually lives thousands of feet deep in the Pacific Ocean and they don’t know how or why it found its way to shore.

News 8 spoke to the man who took pictures of the fish, and he says initially, he thought it was a jellyfish. But once he saw its mouth, he knew it was something different.

Scientists say it’s about the size of a soccer ball. It’s an anglerfish called Pacific Footballfish.

UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography says there are only about 30 anglerfish like this one in museums and fish collections around the world.

“Some of them have actually been caught in deep water nets off of California but also off Japan. Even in New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. So, all over the Pacific Ocean,” said Ben Frable, Collection Manager of Marine Vertebrates, with Scripps Institute of Oceanography.

Frable says another anglerfish was spotted near Laguna Beach earlier this year, but it’s been 20 years since an anglerfish has been seen off the coast in the San Diego area.