A deep sea "monster" seen in daylight recently shook the internet. But what few know is that another was spotted in the US. So few have been seen since the species was discovered that even when they are found dead, the scientific community gets excited. This is because the Pacific footballfish lives at depths where humans cannot swim.
Consequently, there are more questions about the prehistoric-looking fish than answers.
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Recent Anglerfish Discovery Went Viral, But Pacific Footballfish Made Headlines First
The alive abyssal humpback anglerfish discovered alive near the Canary Islands made headlines in 2025, but a Pacific Footballfish washing up on California's shoreline made anglerfish headline news
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Shutterstock Pacific footballfish -
Macrophyseter, CC BY SA 4.0, by Wikimedia Commons Pacific footballfish -
Mark6mauno, CC BY 2.0, by Wikimedia Commons Pacific footballfish
In February 2025, an underwater photographer named David Jara Boguña went on an expedition with the conservation organization Condrik Tenerife to photograph sharks. The group went off the coast of Tenerife in the Canary Islands to find the sharks. But, what the group ended up discovering was far rarer.
In the water, bobbing along, was an abyssal humpback anglerfish. The fish was not where it was supposed to be, given that anglerfish live in some of the deepest parts of the ocean. Consequently, those who saw it knew something was wrong with the fish.
Ultimately, the fish died. However, Boguña captured a video of the anglerfish swimming before it passed. The video went viral, given how anglerfish are seen infrequently when deceased, let alone alive.
But as spectacular a story as this was, the abyssal humpback anglerfish was not the first to make headlines. The Pacific footballfish, coming ashore in California in 2021, caused a stir about the anglerfish species.
Pacific Footballfish Appears On California Beach
In May 2021, visitors to Crystal Cove State Park in Newport Beach, California, were greeted by a surprising figure on the beach.
The fish was completely intact when it was found. Given the size of the Pacific footballfish, the creature was determined to be female. This is because female anglerfish can grow up to 24 inches long and have the bait and lure-looking appendage known as the esca on their heads.
Males, on the other hand, are just one inch long. They attach themselves to the female anglerfish like a little parasite. Eventually, all that is left of the male anglerfish are their testes, which provide the females with sperm to fertilize their eggs.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife removed the Pacific footballfish from the beach for safekeeping. The hope was that the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum would take the fish to add to its collection.
Seeing its pristine condition, the museum jumped at the opportunity to receive it.
The Los Angeles County Natural History Museum not only has the Pacific footballfish in their collection, but three other anglerfish as well.
Even more interesting was that after California had not seen an anglerfish on its shores in 20 years, this would not be the only Pacific footballfish to wash up on the California coast in 2021. The numbers seen that year would exponentially increase the number of Pacific footballfish seen by people.
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Just Over 30 Pacific Footballfish Have Been Seen By Humans
Since discovered in the 1980s, there have only been 32 Pacific footballfish sightings
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Emőke Dénes, CC BY SA 4.0, by Wikipedia Commona Footballfish
Very few Pacific footballfish have ever been seen by humans. In total, through 2024, there have been 32 fish sightings. These sightings have all resulted from dead fish washing up on beaches in California, Oregon, and Hawaii in the US and internationally in New Zealand, Russia, Ecuador, Japan, and Chile. Humans have never witnessed an alive Pacific footballfish.
The simple fact that these fish have been seen in such low numbers concerns where they live. Pacific footballfish live between 2,000 and 3,000 feet below the ocean's surface. This means the typical scuba diver is not going to get anywhere close to where these fish live.
Manned and unmanned submersibles would be able to capture one of these fish on camera, given the technology available, yet these fish are never seen. It may have to do with their dark coloring that helps the Pacific footballfish camouflage in the ocean's depths. A black fish would be tough to distinguish where sunlight cannot penetrate the water. Therefore, it may be possible that the fish were near where a submersible dove and those watching the cameras would never have seen it.
While over 300 species of angler fish are in the ocean, very few are ever seen alive. The most recent was the humpback anglerfish, which was seen swimming to the ocean's surface off the Spanish island of Tenerife in February 2025. However, like the Pacific footballfish, health issues caused the anglerfish to come to the surface, as it died shortly after being photographed.
This begs the question of why anglerfish like the humpback anglerfish and the Pacific footballfish both come to the surface and wash up on the beach dead. Is it normal that this many Pacific footballfish have come ashore dead in the last several years, or is something causing these fish to die?
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Why Rare Pacific Footballfish Continues To Wash Up On California Beaches
The real reason why Pacific footballfish wash up on California beaches is unknown
The Pacific footballfish was not discovered until 1985 when a fisherman off the coast of California in Monterey Bay pulled up his fishing net to see an odd and threatening-looking fish in the net. This was the first time one of these fish had ever been seen. However, like the rest of the Pacific footballfish, this fish was not alive.
Other Pacific footballfish would wash up on beaches, deceased, over the following decades. However, over the last several years, there has been an uptick in the fish being found onshore, leaving scientists wondering what is causing the Pacific footballfish's demise.
There is no specific answer as to why the Pacific footballfish have been washing up on beaches, particularly California beaches.
In 2021, three Pacific footballfish were spotted on different beaches in Southern California. Those three sightings "doubled the total number of sightings on record" in the Golden State.
According to Bill Ludt, assistant curator of ichthyology at the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum, experts were baffled by why these fish continued to wash up on the beaches in California. Given how little is known about them, it was difficult to come to a conclusion about why it was happening.
"It is very strange, and it's the talk of the town among us California ichthyologists. It's hard to jump to any conclusions about why this is happening... That's the million-dollar question right now." - Bill Ludt
What makes the deaths even more confusing is that there is no trauma to the fish. They all appear to be in good condition. There has not ever been anything found in their stomachs either that could show if they were poisoned from something they ate, either.
"The first anglerfish ever described by science was a footballfish found on a beach in Greenland in 1833. Additionally, many of the beachings around the world occur in the winter months, so there could be something this time of year. With so few individuals and so little known about the biology of anglerfishes in general, we cannot make a determination." - Ben Frable
With so few specimens of the Pacific footballfish to study, coming up with a solid reason why they continue to wash up may never truly be known. Consequently, unless one is ever seen in its natural habitat alive, or there are any with clues that point to why they died, the world of the Pacific footballfish may remain a mystery for years to come.