Myth Buster: Do Sightings of Bizarre 'Doomsday' Fish Mean Earthquakes Are Imminent?
Doomsday fish is a popular Japanese legend that has been sending shivers down people's spines for decades. As per this legend, seeing an oarfish implies that an earthquake or tsunami is around the corner, IFL Science reported.
Researchers have now conducted a study to look into the truth behind this legend.
Despite the ominous reputation the oarfish carries with it, anybody who lays eyes on it for the first time is surprised by its beauty, Discover Magazine reported.
In Japan, the creature has been named "ryugu no tsukai," meaning a messenger from the sea god's palace. The legend has given the oarfish other nicknames like, Harbinger of Doom, and the Doomsday Fish.
Oarfish are not easy to spot in the wild, even though they have a habitat in almost every ocean. Its elusiveness contributes to the myth surrounding its existence.
The giant oarfish can usually grow to the length of the 20- and 30-foot range, Discover Magzine reported. Though sightings of 100-foot-long oarfishes have been reported, organizations like Guinness World Records have never verified them.
The myth surrounding them being harbingers of earthquakes was revitalized again in the 2010s, following several deadly earthquakes and tsunamis, IFL Science reported. Several researchers looked into the validity of this belief that oarfish brought on earthquakes, and published their findings in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.
In the study, the researchers compared the earthquake occurrence rate in Japan with the sightings of oarfish, IFL Science reported. After going through all the available data, the team in most cases could not find a relationship between the sightings and the earthquakes.
In the study, researchers took into account 336 sightings of the fish and 221 earthquakes over the same timeframe, IFL Science reported. They could only find one sighting that preceded the natural disaster. "As a result," they wrote, "one can hardly confirm the association between the two phenomena."
As per experts, people encounter oarfishes with and without earthquakes, IFL Science reported. The encounters that accompany the earthquakes are the ones people talk about more, leading to the myth gaining more credence in the media.
Researchers believe that the myth originated because peculiar behavior in the oarfishes must have been noted by folks before an earthquake, IFL Science reported.
Greek historian Thucydides wrote in his account of earthquakes, that it is common for animals to behave differently before a natural disaster.
"Some minutes before they were felt, the oxen and cows began to bellow, the sheep and goats bleated, and, rushing in confusion one on the other, tried to break the wicker-work of the folds; the dogs howled terribly, the geese and fowls were alarmed and made much noise; the horses which were fastened in their stalls were greatly agitated, leaped up, and tried to break the halters with which they were attached to the mangers; those which were proceeding on the roads suddenly stopped, and snorted in a very strange way," one account of the Naples quake of 1805 reads, IFL Science reported.