Incredible deep-sea fish washes up on California beach

A US man has turned heads across the globe after posting terrifying pics of a sinister-looking creature from the depths.

If you thought stepping on a washed-up stingray in the sand was enough to cack your dacks, be thankful you don’t live in southern California.

A beachgoer has snapped incredible pics of what can only be described as a “nope lamp” washed up on the shores of Newport Beach at Crystal Cove State Park.

The creature, officially identified as a Pacific footballfish, is a resident of the deepest parts of the ocean where fish are forced to evolve with lanterns to navigate the shadowy depths. The Pacific footballfish is part of the anglerfish family consisting of over 300 species.

The alien-esque fellow pictured here came in at 45cm, but the largest of the anglerfish family can reach almost 30 times that size with the Ceratias holboelli capable of measuring in at a whopping 1.2m.

“State park rangers and lifeguards with Crystal Cove State Park were alerted to a weird looking fish that washed ashore Friday morning from beach visitor Ben Estes who happened to notice it on the sand,” a post from Davey‘s Locker Sportfishing read, collecting 42,000 reactions and over 30,000 comments.

“Though the fish itself is not rare, it is extremely rare to see on this intact along a beach in southern CA.”

Not something we pulled onto the boat today but still an AMAZINGLY RARE FIND off of local @newportbeach at Crystal Cove...

Posted by Davey's Locker Sportfishing & Whale Watching on Saturday, May 8, 2021

“Look at the rows of upper and lower teeth, not too many things get away after it bites down. As a fisherman, the one that gets away is not the hardest pill to swallow, it’s the one that gets away that you never saw, the mind will wonder what could it have been?” angler Ted Sims said.

“This is terrifying, and super cool, but also concerning that a fish that belongs so far underwater has washed up on shore,” Stephanie Statz commented.

Little is known about anglerfish compared to other sea life, with the pressure difference and temperature change between research labs and the bottom of the ocean causing problems for the curious creatures above-ground.

Anglerfish have adapted to survive under the immense weight of the ocean by having no air spaces in their body, meaning the pressure that would crush regular organisms doesn’t affect them.

Big nope.