Giant 18-Foot Oarfish Carcass Discovered Off California Cost [VIDEO]

The rarely seen giant oarfish has resurfaced again. On Sunday, a group of snorkelers made a lifetime discovery after they ran into an 18-foot oarfish carcass off the Catalina Island.

The silvery carcass of the 18-foot long oarfish was spotted by a marine science instructor Jasmine Santana, 26, while enjoying a leisurely snorkeling trip off the Southern California coast.

Santana, instructor for the Catalina Island Marine Institute, noticed a huge eye buried under the sand while snorkeling in Toyon Bay, about 22 miles away from the Port of Los Angeles. On seeing the long tail of the creature the instructor was quick to realize that it was the sea serpent.

 "I recognized it once I saw it and I was like, 'Oh my god, this is an oarfish, but it's huge!' And there's no way anyone's going to believe me if I just tell them, so I decided I should grab it and pull it out of the water," Santana told KPCC.

She was initially scared whether the sea serpent was still alive and after confirming it was a carcass, she dragged the giant oarfish out with the help of 20 people.

"It just amazed me," Jeff Chace, director of the Catalina Island Marine Institute, told the Los Angeles Times. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime discovery."

The team has collected tissue samples of the oarfish that will be handed to the researchers at the University of California Santa Barbara and other Universities, which will study it and try to find the cause of death too.

The team is unsure of what to do with the carcass. They are struggling to find apt space for the massive 18 foot oarfish. Stuffing the 18 foot sea serpent in a freezer is highly impossible. The oarfish will most probably be buried and left to decompose. The Institute then plans to mount the skeleton for display.

The rarely seen oarfish are mostly found in temperate to tropical oceans. This is the longest bony fish alive and it rarely beaches. Oarfish beaching only occurs if the fish is sick or dying. This fish has been rarely caught alive and its flesh has gelatinous consistency.  It can grow up to 50 feet long and can dive to a depth of 3,000 feet.

This is not the first time that an oarfish was dragged ashore. Recently, a 13-foot horned sea serpent surfaced on Luis Siret Beach in Andalusian village of Villaricos, Spain.

Scientists at Louisiana State University also captured the oarfish swimming in its natural habitat in the Gulf of Mexico.