Aristotle wrote in his History of Animals, written in the fourth century B.C.: "In Libya, the sea-serpents are enormous. Sailors sailing along the coast say that they have also been attacked by sea serpents during their voyages." In fact, this legendary behemoth is not a sea serpent, but a deep-sea giant fish that scientists call the royal ribbon fish - the longest scleractinian fish in the ocean. Because this 18-meter-long giant fish has been living in deep sea waters, difficult to capture and observe, people know little about it, thousands of years, are full of mystery.
In 2005, the U.S. Marine Corps soldiers Captain Ridgeway and Sergeant White Rice, in order to exercise endurance, driving a sailboat across the Atlantic Ocean. before dawn on July 25, White Rice was asleep, responsible for driving Ridgeway suddenly heard a strange sound coming from the starboard side. So he turned his head to look out to sea and saw a huge twisted monster. The phosphorescent light on the surface of the sea set off its wheelhouse, which looked as if a string of neon lights had been hung. The monster was huge, about 15 meters long, and was swimming rapidly towards them. Ridgeway was stunned by what he saw.
By this time, the monster had already come straight at them and slammed into the sailboat. The violent impact caused the sailboat to start rocking from side to side, immediately waking up the sleeping Bailes. The two men took out their weapons and prepared to fight the monster, but the monster disappeared into the deep water after the impact. Ridgeway recalled later that the monster was silvery white, with a large head like a horse's, but without ears or horns, a white stripe on its forehead, and a horsehair-like mane below its neck. Its fins were more than 50 centimeters, thin and blunt, like a triangular plate. The monster's appearance was truly terrifying. The scene reminded the two stunned U.S. Marines of the legendary "great sea serpent".
The Great Sea Serpent, as it turns out, has long been the subject of horrific legends throughout Europe. Many ancient and medieval nautical writings describe encounters between ships and great sea serpents, and on August 14, 1817, many people saw a very large sea serpent in the area of Gloucester Harbor, Massachusetts, USA. The New England Linnaean Society organized a special committee to investigate the matter and took sworn testimony from people who saw the great sea serpent. According to the testimony, the great sea serpent "had a head as large as a four-gallon barrel, a body as thick as a piping barrel, and a length of at least forty feet."
On October 11, 1848, after the British warship HMS Daedalus returned to Plymouth Harbor from the East Indies, the ship submitted a report. The report stated that at 5 p.m. on August 6, while the ship was in the South Atlantic, about 300 miles from Africa, "the officer-in-waiting, Mr. Sartorius, saw a very singular object, swimming rapidly towards the ship from directly astern." Sartorius immediately reported it to his superiors. The captain, two officers, and other personnel responded to the sighting and saw a large sea serpent, estimated by witnesses to be sixty feet long at the exposed portion, with a head and neck about fifteen or sixteen inches in diameter, swimming at over ten miles per hour past the Dedalus to the southwest. Captain McQueen Hay said it passed "very close to the side of the ship below the transom."
What's even creepier is that every time the Great Sea Serpent appears, it's followed by an earthquake or tsunami in the area. Therefore, in most legends, the appearance of the "Great Sea Serpent" has become the harbinger of an ominous event. For thousands of years, the Great Sea Serpent has been a huge shadow over all seafarers. To this day, some people still refer to it as "the devil's messenger".
In September 2006, a dying kingfish appeared on the surface off Australia. Possibly due to illness, it was no longer able to dive into the deep sea, and could only float motionlessly on the surface of the water. This royal banded fish is more than 8 meters long, with a laterally flattened body, extended bands, and a head that looks like a horse's head. The body was as silvery as stripers much smaller than them and had a bright red dorsal fin above the entire body. A nearby fisherman found it and dragged it to shore with a hook, where the royal striped bass died shortly thereafter. When the news got out, it immediately aroused great enthusiasm among scientists. Marine zoologists from all over the world flocked to Australia to study the accidentally acquired fish. In this way, the royal ribbon fish slowly out of the deep sea, into people's field of vision. In May 2010, a dead 3-meter-long individual was found offshore Sweden, after the last record in Swedish waters in 1879.
In 2001, a royal ribbonfish was first caught by mistake off Hong Kong waters, east of Zhanjiang.
In April 2011, fishermen in Miaoli, Taiwan, caught a royal ribbonfish about 3 meters 5 in length off the coast of Zhunan;
In late September 2011, fishermen in Chenggong Township, Taiwan, caught a royal ribbonfish of 463 centimeters in length and weighing about 80 kilograms in the waters off Sanshantai, coincidentally in Hualien, where on Sept. 22 there was a Richter Scale 5.2 felt earthquake. Taroko and Hohhuan Mountain areas can feel the magnitude 4 tremor, the epicenter is located in Hualien offshore;
In the early morning of June 15, 2012, an angler in Taiwan's Hualien County, Liwu Creek outlet on the beach, found a tail length of about 6 meters of the royal banded fish .
On Oct. 15, 2013, a marine science teacher in California found the carcass of an 18-foot-long (about 5.5-meter-long) silver royal ribbonfish while diving in Southern California waters.
October 28, 2013, Taitung angler Kuo Chiu Lin to shore patrol 81 brigade Jing Yang security checkpoints near the beach fishing, actually caught a tail of 5 meters long, weighing hundreds of Taiwan jin (1 Taiwan jin = 0.6 kilograms) of seismic fish, the need for four strong men to hold, local fishermen, said the seismic fish was caught ashore or the first time. According to Taiwan's fish database, the seismic fish, scientifically known as the Le's royal ribbon fish, inhabits 20 to 1,000 meters below sea level, and is also known as the seismic fish because it often appears before and after earthquakes.
On March 7, 2014, a 4.38-meter-long deep-sea "king ribbon fish" was found by a resident of the Shiragata coast in the Senzaki area of Nagato City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan. The discovery was the seventh in Nagato-shi since 1999, and the one found this time was larger.
Mexico's Shallow Seas Spot Live Kingfish
April 8, 2014 - A rare live kingfish, up to 4.5 meters long, has been spotted in Mexico's shallow waters.
Chicago's Shedd Aquarium (Shedd Aquarium) organizes tours for specialists who have discovered a living royal banded fish in the crystal clear waters of Mexico's Sea of Cortés, which is about 4.5 meters long and has a dorsal fin almost as long as its body.
On June 1, 2015, a giant royal ribbonfish carcass was discovered at Sandy Beach, south of Catalina Island in Los Angeles, U.S. It measured 17 feet (about 5.2 meters) in length and required the combined efforts of 16 people to move it.
The huge fish, which was found by a local beachcomber, washed up on the beach already dead, with its head mangled by seagulls pecking at it. Scientists who study the fish say that although the fish is incredibly long, it can grow to be as long as 50 feet (15.2 meters).
This is reportedly not the first time a giant royal ribbon fish has been spotted at Sandy Beach. A 15-foot-long (4.6-meter-long) royal ribbonfish was spotted here in 2006 as well.