sprech4:

bogleech:

unsubredun:

ghost-of-gold:

absentminded-queen:

aviculor:

crowsephone:

adachitohrumpreg:

arkhamsiren:

callilopes:

underthevastblueseas:

Strange Japanese Fish

Species Unknown

i dont like stating my opinion but JAPAN, SERIOUSLY

what dah fuck is dat

wHAT HTE SHIT

YOU SEE THIS IS WHY I HAET FISH

LOOK AT THIS SHIT

they don’t even know what it is and they’re already dismembering it for food

Japan

what the everlasting fuck is that shit!?

THIS IS WHY I FUCKING HATE THE SEA

O_______O WHAT

YO BOGLEECH HIT ME UP

You know what this is? I thought it was a Sunfish at first but it’s long and thin and not wide and flat.

This is the somewhat damaged corpse of a Megamouth Shark, a toothless filter-feeder like the “Basking” and “Whale” sharks, but rather smaller, and significantly rarer. It sticks to deep, dark waters, rising closer to the surface only at night. In just a few recorded cases, sick or dying megamouths have surfaced in daylight:

There’s actually nothing necessarily “Japanese” about them. Japan has found the most specimens because Japan is a world leader in biological research, but also, sadly, in excessive unsustainable fishing. Some megamouths are killed accidentally by deep water nets.

Live megamouths produce light along their upper lip and possibly from somewhere inside the mouth, though this doesn’t preserve well in specimens. This probably attracts more planktonic prey in the colder depths, where it tends to be sparser. It may even lure small to medium sized fish, which would be swallowed whole; a shark that hunts like an anglerfish and eats like a pelican.

The first Megamouth ever discovered was in Hawaiian waters in 1976, less than ten years before I was born!

I actually first heard about the Megamouth as a young child from a “Shark Bites” gummy candy promotion, which packed a glow-in-the-dark Megamouth toy. I wish I still had it, even though they falsely gave it jagged teeth.

I’ve never actually seen one washed up like this! I love megamouths, they are insanely cool. Just look at that wonderful massive horrifying mouth.