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It has bright red fins, silver skin, can grow up to 20 feet long, and fascinates both for its appearance and the mystery surrounding it. The royal herring has just washed up in California.
The phenomenon is rare. The royal herring lives 1 kilometer below the surface of the water and only exceptionally washes up. This year, however, two specimens appeared in California, one last week, on a beach in Encinitas (a coastal city in the south of the state) and the other off the coast of San Diego, last August. An appearance that revives old legends; the royal herring is considered an omen of natural disasters, and in particular earthquakes. In 2011 in Japan, during the devastating Tōhoku earthquake, which caused more than 15,000 victims, around twenty of these fish washed up on the beaches in the months preceding the tragedy, reports the Belgian media Sudinfo .
Despite this persistent and very dark reputation, no scientific link has yet been established between the royal herring and natural disasters. According to the researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Ben Frable, “changes in the ocean could explain these unusual appearances.” He added that “these rare encounters allow us to learn more about this mysterious species.”
