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Bizarre Deep Sea Fish Dredged Up By Tsunami

spankfish writes "The following page features numerous great pictures of bizarre and creepy deep-sea creatures which have been dredged up by the recent tsunami and presented by normal divers. Fascinating stuff! The page is in Russian, but it's all about the pictures." Update: 01/15 18:02 GMT by J : As those of you who read the comments have already realized, this is an urban legend.

53 of 339 comments (clear)

  1. Oops... by Guido+del+Confuso · · Score: 5, Informative

    They may be weird fish, but they sure didn't wash up on shore from the tsunami! This story just isn't true.

    http://www.snopes.com/photos/tsunami/creature.asp

    1. Re:Oops... by TelcusFreshbreeze · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Good call
      Snopes should be the first port of call for anything like this

    2. Re:Oops... by Bon+bons · · Score: 5, Informative

      Here are where the pictures originally came from. As the above poster said the story is not true, but the sealife is real.

    3. Re:Oops... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Slashdot editors.. OWNED!

    4. Re:Oops... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Bull!

      Editors are supposed to double check stories and at the very least look for reputable cross-references before blindly accepting a story and calling it news. This isn't an honest error, it is sheer incompetence.

      This is yellow journalism, plain and simple. Even your high school newspaper has higher standards than this.

    5. Re:Oops... by levin · · Score: 2, Informative

      Another page that outlines the hoax, figured I'd post it for the hell of it.

      --

      `which fortune`
    6. Re:Oops... by macduck · · Score: 3, Funny

      Thought it sounded fishy...

    7. Re:Oops... by ArsenneLupin · · Score: 2, Informative
      (e.g. a short wave that's very long)

      Is that something like a secure Windows system ;-)?

      I guess you mean a shallow wave that's very long, or a low-amplitude wave that's very long.

    8. Re:Oops... by TFGeditor · · Score: 2, Informative

      If you are close to shore (hence shallow) they wouldn't be "deep sea" creatures.

      --
      Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
    9. Re:Oops... by mobby_6kl · · Score: 4, Informative

      >Editors are supposed to double check stories and at the very least look for reputable cross-references ....

      No they're not, from the /. FAQ:

      How do you verify the accuracy of Slashdot stories?
      We don't. You do. :) If something seems outrageous, we might look for some corroboration, but as a rule, we regard this as the responsibility of the submitter and the audience. This is why it's important to read comments. You might find something that refutes, or supports, the story in the main.

    10. Re:Oops... by maddskillz · · Score: 2

      I think the thing you have to do is look at both sides of the picture. When people are trying to make an argument, they often only tell part of the picture. This goes for both the good and the bad side. It's up to you to get both sides, and figure things out for yourself.

    11. Re:Oops... by Tim+C · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Just because they tell you they're going to do it doesn't make it right. They don't check grammar, spelling or factual correctness, they have no business calling themselves editors. "Submission vettors" perhaps.

    12. Re:Oops... by Sepper · · Score: 2

      The ironic thing in all this (with SuperSize Me and Micheal Moore's Movies) is that poeple usually blame the sensationalism that hide a part of the facts.

      Yet if it was not for that sensationalism, those 'documentaries' would get little or not attention. It seems somewhere that people prefer illusion and ignorance than the truth.A thorough documentary explaining both sides to the story would probably be too borring for it to gain popularity...

      --
      I live in Soviet Canuckistan you insensitive clod!
    13. Re:Oops... by Joao · · Score: 2, Informative

      I guess nobody stoped to think about this one. Tsunamis don't afect the deep sea. At deep sea, a tsunami is only a few centimeters tall (but several kilometers in lengh). You can be on a boat, or diving in the water, and you won't even notice it.

    14. Re:Oops... by Ralph+Wiggam · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There was an American family quoted in many news stories that were scuba diving during the tsunami and didn't notice anything had happened until they saw debris floating above.

      I actually know that family from elementary school. What an amazing story.

      -Barry

    15. Re:Oops... by letxa2000 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Do you know what a truly thorough documentary expaining both sides to the story is? It's academic work.

      And you know what a completely one-sided and biased "documentary" is, like the stuff spewed by Moore? It's called propaganda.

    16. Re:Oops... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      And you know what a completely one-sided and biased "documentary" is [...]

      Fox News?

  2. I recognize some of them... by gatorflux · · Score: 3, Funny

    The first one had a co-starring role in The Faculty.

  3. Well... by sandstorming · · Score: 5, Funny

    One day we WILL defeat the Goa'uld

  4. Re:Finding Nemo by isometrick · · Score: 3, Informative

    The fish in Finding Nemo is an Angler fish.

  5. Crab... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sweet! That one crab-like thing is awesome.

    I hereby name it the Crabtacular spikeouchamus, or "Spiky Ubercrab"!

    I never had a favorite animal before, but now I do. It's red, hard, and just plain intimidating. Almost like a Sauron of the seas. Sweeeeeeet!

    1. Re:Crab... by sunspot42 · · Score: 4, Funny

      >>It's red, hard, and just plain intimidating.
      >
      >My girlfriend says the same thing about my
      >manhood.

      Yes, but fortunately they have a cream for that now.

  6. Bah! Humbug, or slow day? by freitasm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've seen some worthy news not present on Slashdot... But wasting bandwidth with something already debunked by Snopes hosted on a crap server that is slashdotted with only 8 comments... Argh!

  7. Site already slow, mirror by cerberusss · · Score: 4, Informative
    Pics only:

    mirror

    Coincidentally, the third looks like my mother-in-law.

    --
    8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
  8. Hahaha... by kaedemichi255 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hey, it's Nemo! Boy did he let himself go...

    1. Re:Hahaha... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      No, here is Nemo.

  9. what the fuck by maelstrom · · Score: 5, Funny

    Michael, take a day off, you apparently need it.

    --
    The more you know, the less you understand.
  10. Dali by jazman · · Score: 2, Informative

    That first one isn't so weird, there's one on Dali's Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory.

  11. Re:obligatory. by SlashdotMeNow · · Score: 2, Funny

    In Korea only old people were dredged up by the tsunami.

  12. Thanks, Captain Bringdown by commodoresloat · · Score: 4, Funny

    you had to go spoil all our fun!

  13. Description of page by Rheagar · · Score: 5, Funny

    I imagine that any story which is comprised mainly of pictures that is linked to by slashdot is bound to be brought to its knees before it knew what hit it.
    So I've decided to describe the oddities for the slashdotters with active imaginations! Plus I need to work off some caffiene before I hit the sack.

    (1) A pallid creature of diminutive size which is characterized by a body shaped like the blade of a pocket knife. The edges of the body form a fin which bears remarkable similarity to a feather. The GI tract is visible as a dark tunnel connecting the throat area and leading halfway down its body to where what appears to be a tiny foot is attached! The foot may actually be an anus, but I'm no biologist and I don't read cyrillic.

    (2) This photo shows two beasties in a half meter wide container. The first is a dark, eel-looking fellow with a beaty eye that is glazed over in a sort of post-mortem or thickly armored haze. It is shaped like a bottle rocket -- the back is long , cylindrical, and thin and it has a cylindrical gut of larger diameter attached to the back. His mouth is open a little but no teeth show.
    The other fellow is a white squid which has red highlights on its body. The red is probably a result of its blood and viscera being partially drained into its container, but it is difficult to tell from the picture. It looks like a giant, man eating squid from the movies, except it is not giant.

    (3) This picture shows a fish held in the hands of a proud seaman. The fish is probably 20 pounds heavy. It is dark like a bottom feeder and has a menacing look about it. The rear half of the animal has a fin on top that looks like an inch tall mohawk. An inch or two without a mohawk separates the rear fin from a threatening dorsal fin. The front of the dorsal fin is shaped like the fang of a snake. It is curved back from vertical, thin, and looks like it could inject a deadly poison (probably doesn't though). He has a large eye which glows an eerie yellow color, probably due to the camera's flash. The mouth is not very clear. To add to this fish's badass appearence, it looks like it has won several knife fights and thick scars crease its body.

    (4) This one is ugly. It is in the same type of container as described in picture (2). I imagine that it was once just a very fat fish made of pancake mix, and one day it was dropped on the skillet that is the ocean floor. It is smooshed vertically and resembles "blinky" from the classic Simpson's episode. However, instead of the warm yellow tint of our favorite family, this fish has a mixture of red, brown, and white tints on its body and its face is white like a brie cheese. Come to think of it, its face looks like Marlon Brando. Creepy indeed.

    (5) This critter is a sight to behold! It looks like an criptocletus dinosaur on a smaller scale. It has hand and feet fins that look oars. But the best thing about this animal is that it has a beak. It reminds me of an elongated duckbill platypus' beak, except that it is made of flesh instead of a hardened material. Its eye is black and big. I have relatives who eat fish eyes and I'm sure that it would be a wonderful treat for them.

    OK, thats all I can handle for now. I hope this helps paint the picture.

  14. One thing by dedazo · · Score: 5, Informative
    This is obviously a hoax, but if the "editors" understood even the most basic facts about tsunamis (and they have been in the news of late) they'd have known that a tsunami is inconsequential in deep water - it's only until the wave reaches the incline of the shore that it becomes a wall of water. Ergo, no "deep sea creatures" can be "dredged" up, not even bizarre ones.

    Otherwise I have to say... PwN3D

    --
    Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
  15. Two Possibilities by Rie+Beam · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Lesse - if the page is in Russian, but got approved, there are two possibilities:

    1) Mike doesn't know Russian, and approved it on summary and purty pictures alone.

    OR

    2) Mike knows Russian, and is just gullible.

    Either way, it says something kinda depressing about the state of /. nowadays.

  16. How to describe this dupe? by spudchucker · · Score: 3, Informative
  17. It's a troll by Lairdsville · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I thought I had seen these images before.
    Sure enough, I had. From snopes we get the explanation:

    they are genuine images of some rather strange deep-sea creatures, these photographs have nothing to do with the Indian Ocean tsunami. They date from mid-2003 and were taken as part of the NORFANZ voyage, a joint Australian-New Zealand research expedition conducted in May-June 2003 to explore deep sea habitats and biodiversity in the Tasman Sea. These photographs can be viewed on Australia's National Oceans Office web site.

  18. Does anyone else here watch the Discovery Channel by logicnazi · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Those aren't particularly weird fish. They may be weird and some of them are fish but this certainly doesn't make them weird fish.

    Alot of the things in the water look pretty damn strange but I recognized alot of these animals from science shows and not even ones about deep water fish. While I can't comment about all of them several looked to be the type one might find in fairly shallow water.

    So in response to those who said a Tsunami could bring up these fish I have to disagree, it certainly could stir up fish which live close to shore and even throw them on to land. While it isn't going to stir up fish from the deep ocean my guess is that these are all just fish that live near land but people normally don't notice.

    --

    If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:

  19. Re:slashdotted by catwh0re · · Score: 4, Funny

    it's what you get for posting fake pics, then again it's in russian for all we know they're talking about dinner.

  20. A Message to the Hoax: by inKubus · · Score: 5, Funny

    So Long, and Thanks For All The Fish.

    --
    Cool! Amazing Toys.
  21. Priceless by renata.org · · Score: 2

    Computer: $2000
    Broadband Internet: $100
    Being fooled by a hoax at Slashdot's main page: priceless

  22. retraction by shimbee · · Score: 3, Interesting

    shouldn't slashdot have some sort of journalistic responsibility to retract posts that are clearly hoaxes? many "legitimate" news sources often refer to slashdot as a real reference, and leaving hoaxes up un-changed seems unethical.

  23. Hmm by Turn-X+Alphonse · · Score: 4, Funny

    Anyone else thinking michael got Taco drunk, send him to bed with a shemale and blackmailed him into giving him this job? After this week I'm starting to think this is more likely than not..

    --
    I like muppets.
  24. Fun with taking things out of context.... by xstonedogx · · Score: 3, Funny

    That is some great reading!

    Female anglers grow to be more than a yard long and can produce millions of eggs in a single spawning. The males, which live alone until maturity, reach a length of only 4 to 6 inches.

    And curse of all curses, all the females carry around flashlights, so they can't hide it.

    Released in the deep, anglerfish eggs float to the surface, where the young fish, or fry, feed on plankton.

    Mmmm...fish fry.

    At first, male deep sea anglers are free swimming, with large eyes, no rod or lure, and no digestive tube. Their skin is smooth. When a female and male meet, the male grips her skin with his teeth as usual.

    Makes you wonder who wrote this...

    Meanwhile, the male grows in size and he grows a large testes. The rest of his internal organs disappear. He is now a part of the female deep sea angler!

    Great, just great. He finally gets a pair, and she takes them away!

  25. Looks like this is a hoax.. by ctid · · Score: 3, Informative

    Snopes debunks this story But that's not going to stop me using it to recommend one of my favourite books: A Fish Caught in Time: The Hunt for the Coelacanth, by Samantha Weinberger. I couldn't put it down and I had to blink back a tear at one point. Not bad for a factual book.

    --
    Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
  26. famous last words by KRYnosemg33 · · Score: 2, Funny
    famous last words


    "but it's all about the pictures"

  27. Re:Oops by ArsenneLupin · · Score: 2, Funny
    Not only that, but the page hosting pictures of these critters has been hacked... sheesh... http://www.oceans.gov.au/norfanz/images/creature_f eatures/hr/

    Groovy! SlashHax0rs are da mazter! However they could at least have put the dreaded goatfish on that page instead of their lame message!

  28. Let's not get carried away here. by tinkerton · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Pun intended. Agreed, it's a hoax. Just like with a wave in a pipe, what you push in on one side does not come out at the other side. A wave travels a long way but the material in the pipe just shifts a little bit. And the basic model of a tsunami is just water bungeeing to and fro a bit and ending up where it started. No body of water is displaced very far.

    But if you think of general fluid dynamics, it is possible that a relatively small body of water travels a long way(many miles, not many thousands of miles). It's plausible that sea creatures surface after such an earthquake. They would surface in the middle of the ocean. And then there's sea currents.

  29. 'Weird' Fish and Processed Food by Uber+Banker · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You joke, but these fish are part of the human food chain. There are little/no rules on deep sea fishing in international waters. Commonly trawlers drag their nets across the deepest depths of the ocean catching these type of fish - apparantly plentiful. The fish then get processed into feed for Salmon farming, or even into condiments and flavourings for everyday food.

    . THis is a worrying phenomenon for environmentalists - because we know so little about deep sea fish we have no idea if we're making species extinct or disrupting the natural ocean food chain.

  30. Fake, but accurate by JLyle · · Score: 5, Funny
    ... the story is not true, but the sealife is real.
    This story brought to you by CBS News!
  31. A future Snopes article by eric.t.f.bat · · Score: 5, Funny

    Claim: Slashdot articles are written by an infinite number of monkeys.

    Status: False

    Example: This article, and many, many, many others.

    Origins: It seems that many people consider that a popular source of information must, by its very nature, be reliable. "With enough eyes, all bugs are shallow" is a common argument in support of this theory. But as can be seen with a cursory glance at the Slashdot "news" site, it just ain't so.

    This dichotomy has led many people to assume that the so-called "editors" of Slashdot are nothing more than an infinite number of monkeys, but a little logic will demonstrate why this is also unlikely:

    • An infinite number of monkeys can be expected to produce the works of Shakespeare. Shakespeare had talent, integrity and an instinctive grasp of narrative and logic. Whoever is writing Slashdot articles shows none of these skills. Advantage: Monkeys.
    • Despite all this, Shakespeare's spelling was appalling. He even misspelled his own name! While the spelling abilities of Slashdot editors are certainly not up to the standard one would expect for one's household pets or pond algae, they're not as bad as ol' Will. Advantage: Slashdot.
    However, the telling point is this: Monkeys are not aquatic. Thus, they have no interest in penguins. Slashdot editors, on the other hand, can think of little else. It seems far more likely that the Slashdot editors are an infinite number of penguins; the penguin's flippers are slightly more suited to keyboards than the monkeys hands which, despite having agile fingers, lack the opposable thumb essential to the operation of the space bar.

    It's certainly easy to see how this urban legend got started, but as usual, a little logic goes a long way.

    Barbara "anyway monkeys are way too bright" Spoofelson

    --
    I have discovered a truly remarkable .sig block which this margin is too small to conta
  32. If you find anything huge by AndroidCat · · Score: 2, Interesting

    then don't stand too close to it, okay? (messy photo warning) And certainly, don't try to blow it up with explosives! There's even a wiki these days.

    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  33. Hmmmm by SilverspurG · · Score: 2, Funny

    I swear I've been trolled by some of those things.

    --
    fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
  34. All your bass... by FlatCatInASlatVat · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...are belong to us!