This is an oar fish, google it.

Yeah if you do an image search for it you'll find lots of similar pictures. Odd looking critter, though.

Are they "good" in aquariums???

Who cares about aquariums? We need recipes!
(my favorite fish are: Baked, broiled, fried, in a stew, poached...)

Yeah that's an oar fish. One of the pics is actually in the Wiki article

The 1906 one is just a tree isn't it?

There's a similar picture on http://www.thejump.net/id/oarfish.htm I wan.t one.

I agree, it's an oarfish, probably Regalecus glesne. This creature is native to tropical oceans around the world, but is not seen too often because it lives rather deep in the water. It is a rather amazing fish. It has about 400 dorsal fin rays, which is probably the most of any fish I've heard of. It apparently likes to swim in a vertical position (perfectly perpendicular to the ocean surface and bottom), keeping its body still except for the undulating dorsal fin. As large as it is, it is said to live mainly on plankton.

I've never seen one in an aquarium, but I suppose you could keep one in a marine setup if you had a very, very, very large tank. Recipes are not my department, but most fish are edible, so why not?

I'm not so sure about the 1906 picture from Ballard, Washington, but I'm inclined to agree with mr royale that it's a slightly modified tree trunk.

Those men look very tiny. If you ask me, they are probably just garden gnomes...and that fish is not very big at all.

So what's with the blurry arms on the two blue-helmeted guys towards the right? Are we seeing through the fish? Or is that just markings on the fish that happen to line up with where their arms could be?

The 1906 photo--what Big Gary said--it looks like they're holding a log with a head and tail added.

Joe, I think it's just a coincidence that variations in the shininess of the fish's side occur in front of where those two men's arms might be. One of my sources says that the oarfish is scaleless but has its skin covered with guanine (a shiny metallic-looking pigment), which is easily rubbed off when the fish is handled. So probably someone did carry the fish with arms around that part of the body, but they don't have their arms there in the moment of the photo.

I live near a creek, which runs well after rains, but will slow to a depth of a foot or less during dryer spells... we get these carp showing up in little eddy pools, and you see their dorsal spines, or spikes or whatever the hell they are, popping up out of the water first... they get to be about three feet long at most, and will get trapped in eddy pools if the water drops too much... how the hell they get in there in the first place is beyond me... they look like a cross between a catfish and a goldfish, all orange and white and red... weird... I know if I saw that oarfish flappin around in the creek, I'd play dead and hope for the best

That makes sense, B.G.

It must not be a very heavy fish for its size because only three of those guys seem to be holding it up.

Well, at least now we know what the Loch Ness Monster is.

dana that's not funny nessie isn't an oarfish

Oarfish, definitely.

Malaysia?? I've seen other SE Asian sites stealing these pix, saying these are nagas, serpent-gods.

I'm convinced the real source of the very real pictures is this site:
http://www.bloodydecks.com/forums/baja-mexico-fishing-reports-discussion/81929-isla-san-marcos-sea-story-09-01-07-oarfish.html

I'm a four years too late, but the black and white sea monster is a hoax, here's a better look: http://thebiggeststudy.blogspot.com/2011/06/peeking-at-ivans-situ-files-meaningless_09.html

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