Sybil Robertson wasn’t expecting to confront an existential concept when she took her pup for his daily walk on Ocean Beach in Tasmania, Australia, but that’s the position she soon found herself in on Monday when she stumbled upon a nearly 10-foot-long oarfish that had washed up on the shore.

The rarely seen creature is one of the longest fish in the world, and in many people’s minds, has come to portend that some bad juju could be on the way—hence its nickname as the “Doomsday” fish (it’s also less ominously known as the “king of herrings”).

Related: ROV captures first-ever footage of oarfish in the wild

“When I go out there, I’m the only person on the beach,” Robertson, a local resident, told The Guardian of the circumstances around her discovery. “It’s really wild. There’s nothing between here and Argentina.”

On Monday morning, Robertson decided to take a different route than usual, and came upon a group of sea eagles surrounding the fish, which had already washed up onto the sand.

“It was fantastic,” Robertson said of the somewhat creepy-looking sea creature. While she admittedly did not know what it was, or the history behind it, “I just knew it was something unusual and weird,” she said.

So she posted a photo of the fish to a local citizen scientist page, then quickly learned more about the animal she had encountered.

While it looked enormous to Robertson, the oarfish she discovered was actually a pretty small example, as they can grow up to nearly 60 feet long. But that wasn’t the only surprising thing about this oarfish.

“It’s exceptionally unusual to see anything like that,” Neville Barrett, a marine ecologist and associate professor at the University of Tasmania, told The Guardian. He explained that oarfish are an “epipelagic” species, meaning they generally reside at about 1,650 feet below the ocean’s surface. So to have one wash ashore is an unusual, although not unheard-of, occurrence.

Related: Another ‘Doomsday Fish’ Just Washed Up on a Popular Beach

Learning this made Robertson even more excited about her run-in with the sea creature. While it washed up in relatively good condition, it didn’t take long—just a few hours—for local birds, including crows and eagles, to remove the fish’s head and nibble on other parts of its body.

Still, it’s not a sight Robertson is likely to forget anytime soon. “It’s just so interesting what you can find if you just keep your eyes open whilst you’re looking around,” she says. “It’s just amazing.”

Giant ‘Doomsday’ Fish Washes Up on Popular Beach in Australia first appeared on Men’s Journal on Jun 4, 2025