19-year-old Oscar Lundahl, a Norwegian angler, was shocked when he fished out an Alien-Like creature with massive eyes.
Oscar works as a fishing guide for the Nordic Sea Angling came across with a strange animal when he was fishing for the blue halibut in the Andoya Island in Norway.
Using mackerel as bait with 4 hooks, the 19-year-old angler was fishing in 2,600 feet of water at the time.
Luckily, the fish turned out to be a ratfish, which has a Latin name of “Chimaeras Monstrosa Linnaeus”.
The Latin name is derived from a Greek mythical monster that had the head of a lion and the trail of a fire-spitting dragon.
During an interview with Oscar, he said, “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.”
He added, “It took me about 30 minutes to reel it in because it was 800 metres deep. There were two halibut on two of the hooks and I was really happy about that and then I saw there was something else.”
He continued, “It was pretty amazing. I have never seen anything like it before. It just looked weird, a bit dinosaur-like. I didn’t know what it was but my colleague did.”
The ratfish is a relative of sharks.
Usually, the ratfish live in deep water and it is very rare that someone gets an opportunity to catch it.
Their wide open eyes adapted in the nature they live in. The enlarged eyes help them see in the darkness of the deep sea.
Another great thing about the ratfish is that they are no harm to human beings, and they love to eat snails and crabs.
Unfortunately, the ratfish died minutes after it was brought out of the water due to sudden change in air pressure.
Despite the fish looking like an alien, Oscar said it was “really tasty.”