"When the prey swims past its mouth, the oarfish will quickly attack the prey like a spring and quickly suck the food into its mouth."
Xiang Yang turned the oarfish over with great effort and continued, "Oarfish are easy to identify. Their bodies are as silvery as those of the much smaller cutlassfish, and they have a bright red dorsal spine above their entire bodies."
Li Chao looked at the oarfish and said in surprise, "It really is there."
Since the oarfish was discovered by humans after it emerged from the deep sea in September 2006, many of its habits are no longer a secret.
Scientists and biologists have summarized many habits of oarfish.
Mid-November every year is the breeding season for oarfish. Countless oarfish will gather in the South Pacific from all over the world. They will form countless small groups in the South Pacific, with as few as a dozen and as many as hundreds of fish in each group, just like the snakes in the movie "Anaconda". Their flat and slender bodies twisted and entangled with each other, wriggling and rolling on the seabed covered with coral reefs.
What is strange is that whether it is a small oarfish group or a large oarfish group at sea, there is only one female oarfish in it, and the rest are male oarfish suitors.
Scientists discovered through diving robots that a female oarfish will lay a total of about 100,000 eggs during the breeding period.
After the breeding period, all the oarfish will disappear without a trace in an instant, leaving only patches of coral reefs dyed white by fish eggs.
In addition, the oarfish seems to be a highly intelligent creature.
Because they are capable of playing pranks and know how to play tricks on humans.
In 2005, when a captain of the U.S. Marine Corps was sailing across the Atlantic Ocean on a sailboat, a huge sea monster with a twisted body suddenly appeared on the sea.
The stars on the sea surface highlight its outline, making it look like a string of neon lights.
The sea monster was silver-white all over, with a huge head like a horse's head, but without ears or horns. Its forehead was decorated with white stripes, making it look ancient and mysterious, and something like horse hair grew on the lower part of its neck.
After accurate calculations, the captain of the US Marine Corps concluded that the sea monster's fins alone were at least half a meter long. Its fins were thin and blunt, like a triangular piece of iron.
The terrifying thing is that the sea monster is at least fifteen meters long.
As soon as the monster appeared, it rushed directly towards the sailboat, ramming it violently and causing it to sway from side to side.
Just as the Marine captain was about to shoot at the monster, the sea monster suddenly dived into the seabed and disappeared without a trace.
Later, experts compared pictures and confirmed that the sea monster was the oarfish.
Scientists also concluded that oarfish are carnivorous fish.
It was also determined that oarfish are more ferocious than ordinary sharks, and they even kill each other like crocodiles.
This is probably because other fish are scarce and food is scarce in the deep sea where the oarfish lives, so it eventually evolved this brutal character in order to survive.
"Mr. Xiang, are you interested in this oarfish? If not, why not just give it to me?" Murong Zhenfei looked at Xiang Yang and said.
Xiang Yang shook his head, then nodded. He smiled and said, "I am a fisherman. I am interested in all kinds of fish. But if you are interested, I will sell them. If you want, Mr. Murong, how much is this fish per pound?"
Hairtail fish is very cheap.
In Zhoushan, very fresh small-eyed hairtail only costs a dozen or twenty yuan per catty.
But oarfish is obviously not that cheap.
After all, the market has always followed the principle that scarcity makes things valuable.
Although there are a lot of oarfish on the seabed, they are extremely difficult to catch and are rarer on the market than lobsters and abalone.
"This fish must weigh over a thousand kilograms, right?" Murong Zhenfei first asked Xiang Yang an irrelevant question.
Xiang Yang shook his head. "More than 700 kilograms, this is already a very large oarfish."
Oarfish of this size have teeth that can tear through fishing nets, and they usually hide at the bottom of the water more than 800 meters deep, making them almost impossible to catch.
Xiang Yang was also lucky, as he got this one by chance.
Even though Xiang Yang had the mysterious jade shell on him, he couldn't guarantee that he would be able to catch a second one in his lifetime.
Murong Zhenfei obviously thought of the rarity of the oarfish, so he became interested in it, otherwise he would not have thought highly of this kind of fish.
Even Li Chao was a little tempted. He knew how rare oarfish was. If he brought it back, he would definitely be able to attract a large number of customers.
But after thinking about it carefully, Li Chao decided to forget it.
He is in the hotel business, and reputation is very important in the hotel business. If the hairtail he brings back doesn't taste as good as he imagined, it would be a bad thing for him.
Of course, the most important thing is that Li Chao had obtained a batch of yellow croakers before, and this time he had brought back a bluefin tuna, so he didn't have much desire for the oarfish.
It can be seen that Murong Zhenfei really wants to buy this fish, but he has never dealt with Xiang Yang before. This is his first time dealing with Xiang Yang. Now Xiang Yang asked him how much he would pay per pound for this oarfish, and he didn't know how to answer Xiang Yang.
If the price was too low, he was afraid that Xiang Yang would not sell it, and then he would offend Xiang Yang.
If the price was too high, Murong Zhenfei was worried that he would end up with this oarfish. After all, this fish was too rare, and he didn't know how many people in the market could afford it.
Murong Zhenfei asked tentatively, "How much is this fish per pound, Mr. Xiang? Are you willing to sell it?"
Xiang Yang said: "I don't know whether this fish is delicious or not, but this fish is so rare that it should be worth at least one hundred yuan per pound, right?"
Beef costs forty or fifty yuan per pound.
How rare is this oarfish
If the price is lower than 100 yuan per catty, Xiang Yang will definitely not sell it. He can keep it for himself. Anyway, he has a lot of people and many eaters now, so a 700-pound oarfish is not something he cannot finish.
Murong Zhenfei raised his eyebrows. The price Xiang Yang offered was much lower than he had imagined.
He thought for a moment and said, "Mr. Xiang, oarfish is too rare. I don't know the market for it. I want to take it back and make it into processed food. Even if there is no market, it can bring me a lot of fame. You and Brother Chao are old acquaintances, and I don't want to take advantage of you. I'll pay 200 yuan per kilogram for this oarfish."
"Okay." Xiang Yang nodded. In fact, the reason why he offered such a low price was to give face to Li Chao. Now that Murong Zhenfei wanted to raise the price herself, Xiang Yang was naturally happy to agree.
The weight of the oarfish is 704 kilograms.
Xiang Yang gave Murong Zhenfei a small change and took 140,000 yuan from him.