Is there any greater name for a fish species than "King of Herrings"?  I have often savored this name, because it is so very awesome.  And unique in the animal kingdom, unless you count Rat Kings, which are a subject for another post.

The King or Herrings is more boringly known as the Giant Oarfish.  Scientifically, Regalecus glesne.  This giant fish lives in the ocean's depths, where it presumably rules over the herring kingdom from a remote underwater stronghold.

Oh wait, I'm making stuff up again.  Sorry about that.  But seriously, how can you resist when you're talking about a fish called "King of Herrings"?  Oh, and in Japanese its colloquial name means "Messenger from the Sea God's Palace."  SO GREAT.

Okay.  Back to the truth.  Giant oarfish are truly giant: they can grow up to 40 feet long, and can weigh up to 600 pounds.  Imagine a fish the length of three cars parked nose to tail!  The King of Herrings lives at the very bottom of all the world's oceans, deep down with the other world's oddities like the giant squid and the angler fish.

Of course, the occasional Giant Oarfish dies and manages to wash itself up on shore, or to be dredged up semi-intact by a fishing or research vessel.  Presumably they occasionally just float along at the surface, as well.  It's easy to see how most of the world's dragon and sea serpent tales could easily come from sightings of the King of Herrings.

There are four members of the Oarfish family, of which the King of Herrings is the largest.  However, the other Oarfish are nothing to sneeze at.  Wikipedia says that a sixteen foot Oarfish washed ashore on Bermuda in the 1860s, and "was originally described as a sea serpent."

Oarfish are an eel-like bony fish.  They have no scales, just a silvery slimy coating.  As scary as they might look, and as fearsome as the reputation of the sea serpent may be, Oarfish have no teeth and eat zooplankton.

Last February, a group of researchers piloting a remotely operated submersible captured the first video of a live oarfish in its natural habitat, 1500 feet below the surface.  The researchers at first thought that their sponsoring gas companies were lowering a length of metal pipe into the water, because the fish was hovering vertically with its head towards the very distant surface.

This video emphasizes one of the many odd things about the King of Herrings: its propulsion system lets it "swim" in some very unusual directions.  The Oarfish swim by undulating the long fin that runs the length of their spines.  By altering the direction of the undulations, the Oarfish in the video escaped the camera by moving backwards and downwards, tail first into the depths.  An interesting retreat, to be sure!

Quite a lot of Oarfish have been washing up this season, including many in Japan.  There, the Oarfish is said to be an omen of a big earthquake.  Could it be the early warning sign of earthquake activity?  Or just a coincidence?  Only time will tell!