The Japanese nickname for the oarfish is "ryugu no tsukai," which translates to English as "messenger from the sea god's palace." In the traditional Japanese mythos, this animal is a warning: They are a sign that a tsunami is coming. In this episode, we explore the possibility that this seemingly absurd theory is true, and we talk all about what is perhaps the longest fish in the sea.
Summary
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A portion of the Japanese population is particularly nervous about earthquakes and tsunamis right now. |
| 0:08.2 | And the reason why might surprise you. |
| 0:12.3 | So earlier this year, a couple of orefish were accidentally caught in fishing nets off the northern prefecture of Toyoma in Japan. I know it sounds like |
| 0:22.6 | I'm changing the topic. I promise you we're going to connect the dots here. So the week after, |
| 0:27.9 | another oarfish washed up on shore in Toyoma Bay and later another one was found tangled in a fishing |
| 0:33.8 | net off the port of Imizu. The total Japanese sightings this season are now, I believe, |
| 0:41.4 | at seven, and this has made a segment of the local population uncomfortable, because that is an |
| 0:48.3 | unusually high number, and it has long been believed, in a somewhat superstitious way, perhaps, that the oarfish is a harbinger of destruction, |
| 1:01.4 | an omen of natural disasters. They call this animal Rugu no Tsukai, or the messenger from the sea god's palace. |
| 1:15.0 | And while we in other cultures may want to scoff at this, this traditional belief |
| 1:21.2 | gained a bit of heavy credibility in 2011. |
| 1:27.0 | When 20 oarfish beached themselves on the Japanese coast |
| 1:32.5 | just before the tragic Fukushima earthquake tsunami disaster. |
| 1:40.5 | Now, this, of course, is an anecdote. |
| 1:43.3 | However powerful, intuitively, it proves nothing scientifically. |
| 1:48.7 | And yet, this doesn't mean there is nothing to this either. And so today we are going to examine if there might be truth to the legend. |
| 1:59.9 | Today we are going to talk about a truly legendary animal. |
| 2:05.9 | The giant orefish, Regalysis Glesney. |
| 2:10.6 | I'm Mackin, this is species. |
| 2:16.7 | Welcome to the show. This animal has been in the news and in my requests on multiple occasions, so I had to give you an episode on them. |
| 2:25.3 | Right now, we are actually low on bird requests, so if you want to help me fix that problem and add some birds to my list, go to Speciespodcast.com |
| 2:35.9 | slash contact. |
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