A 7-foot sea creature that washed ashore in Southern California has been identified.
Thomas Turner / ReutersGet breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — A 7-foot sea creature that washed ashore in Southern California has been identified as a hoodwinker sunfish, a recently identified rare species thought to live in the Southern Hemisphere.
That drew the attention of Thomas Turner, an associate professor in UCSB's ecology, evolution and marine biology department who examined the fish and posted photos to the iNaturalist online community. Nyegaard told UCSB in an email that she discussed the images with ichthyologist Ralph Foster of the South Australian Museum but was reluctant to identify the fish as a hoodwinker because the photos didn't clearly show distinctive features and because it had turned up so far out of its known range.
Turner and Nielsen were glad to help, but first they had to find the fish, which had been moved by the tide, according to UCSB.
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