6-foot ‘doomsday fish’ said to be harbinger of natural disasters, seen in waters near Taiwan

A deep-sea diver said he had an encounter with a 6-foot “doomsday” fish off the waters of Taiwan recently.

The fish, called an oarfish, was found with what appeared to be large bite marks on its body, according to ABC7.com.

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Oarfish generally live at depths of around 656 feet, according to iflscience.com. Diving instructor Wang Cheng-ru, who captured the footage of the fish, said he believed the animal may have come to the surface to die.

The creatures can grow to be 50 feet long, and according to IFL Science, are thought to be partly responsible for the legends of sea serpents.

In addition, oarfish are thought to be harbingers of earthquakes by some locals.

Before the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, a dozen of the fish washed ashore in Japan in late 2009 and 2010, according to Indy100.com.

“It’s hard to imagine what sort of phenomenon would occur before an earthquake that would cause these oarfish to leave the [mesopelagic zone] to move towards shore and strand,” Mark Benfield, an oceanographer and ecologist at Louisiana State University, told National Geographic.