The Mystery of Rat Fish: When Fishing Becomes a Magical Discovery

An ordinary fishing trip off the coast of Andoya in Norway turned into an adventure full of surprises when fisherman Oscar Lundahl caught a strangely shaped and “dinosaur” fish with too many eyes. big.

Lundahl, 19, is trying his hand at catching blue flounder in the depths of the sea. With four hooks already dropped about 800 meters, he caught sight of something extremely heavy blocking the line. After more than 30 tense minutes, he finally pulled the fish up.

The shock of facing the strange creature made Lundahl admire. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s weird, it looks like a dinosaur. I don’t know what it is, but the fishing instructor who was with me recognized it,” he said.

The fishing guide of the Nordic Sea Angling service company suggested that it could be a mouse fish – a fish that lived 300 million years ago, related to sharks.

This fish is known by the Latin name Chimaeras Monstrosa Linnaeus, after a Greek mythological monster with the head of a lion and the tail of a dragon.

The ratfish is rarely caught at great depths, and its large eyes allow it to see very far into the deep sea.

However, because the sea pressure suddenly changed when it was brought to the surface, the fish was unable to survive. Lundahl decided not to waste, he took the fish home and cooked it into a dish. “Although it’s weird in shape, it’s really delicious. It tastes like cod but tastes better,” Lundahl added.

This memorable event doesn’t just end with catching a ratfish. Lundahl and his team also fished two more flounder during the same fishing trip.

Ratfish are thought to be harmless to humans and usually eat crustaceans such as crabs, sea snails and clams. Considered the “missing link” between bony fishes and species with cartilaginous skeletons, ratfish usually live at depths of about 1,000 meters below the surface of the sea in search of food.

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