Nightmarish 'footballfish' washes up dead on US beach in potential 1st-of-its-kind occurrence

An extremely rare, deep-sea "footballfish" recently washed up dead on a beach in Oregon — potentially for the first time in the state's history. It is unclear what killed the creepy-looking creature or how it ended up there.

The nightmarish Pacific Footballfish (Himantolophus sagamius) is a species of anglerfish (Lophiiformes) — an order of more than 300 species of deep-sea fish that lurk in the darkness and lure prey toward their fanged jaws with bioluminescent headpieces. Footballfish can live in waters as deep as 3,300 feet (1,000 meters) below the surface and likely dwell in the depths across the Pacific Ocean, although their exact range is unknown. 

Beachcombers spotted the lifeless, alien-looking fish on the shoreline south of Cannon Beach earlier this month, according to a May 19 Facebook post from the Seaside Aquarium. It is unclear whether researchers collected and studied the remains after they were photographed by aquarium staff, which could shed light on the creature's Mysterious fate.

Pacific Footballfish are exceptionally rare. Since the first-ever specimen was accidentally collected in 1975 during a deep-sea trawl in Hawaii, only around 30 individuals have ever been found washed ashore or in the wild, according to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

"While a handful of football fish have been recorded in New Zealand, Japan, Russia, Hawaii, Ecuador, Chile, and California this is the first one reported on the Oregon Coast to our knowledge," Seaside Aquarium representatives wrote.

Before this recent case, the most recent Pacific footballfish specimen collected in the U.S. was a female found on a beach in Crystal Cove State Park, California, in October 2023. Interestingly, another female was found on the same beach in May 2021, although scientists don't know why both specimens washed up in the same place.

Related: 10 creatures that washed up on the world's beaches in 2023