The captors were fishing off the north side of Goat Island, when they noticed the monster wriggling in the water. The boat’s painter was speedily converted into a lariat, and when the fish-snake poked his hideous head above the water it was made prisoner. The young men had a hard fight with the monster, but they finally landed it in the boat and conveyed it to Oakland, where it has been on exhibition.
The monster weighs 18 ¼ lb.
A professor at Berkely University who had been studying all day and far into the darkness over the matter, has found out what the something was and triumphantly pronounced its name. The professor’s designation of the snakefish is anarrhichilthys ocellatus [Anarrhichthys ocellatus, the wolf eel]—at least that is the telegraph operator’s version of it. At all events it is a very queer fish, and it is found only in the Pacific Ocean and the arms thereof.
| NOTE: Anarhichas orientalis better known as the “Bering wolffish” cousin to wolf eel. Both belong to the family of Anarhichadidae known as wolffish or sea wolves. They are indigenous to both cold Pacific and Atlantic waters. The largest species can grow up to be two meters in length. Photo by user Oviphagy, posted to Wikimedia Commons. |
From— Evening News (Sydney, NSW : 1869 - 1931) 28 2 July 1892. Trove. National Library of Australia.
