Scubaism

THIS was a wolf eel, a 6-foot-long - docile, despite appearances - inhabitant of deep waters off the North Atlantic coast, including New Jersey. The creature breaks hard shells with its powerful jaws, like a tool for cracking crabs and lobsters that you get in a restaurant.

The puzzle: How did this smelly, half-decomposed specimen get to a fox den in Hunterdon County?

Susan Goeckeler had been walking with her dogs on her 50-acre farm outside Frenchtown one afternoon about six weeks ago when she came across the unusual jaws.

Goeckeler brought photos to state fisheries folks, who forwarded them to the museum in Philadelphia.

John Lundberg, the curator of fishes at the Academy of Natural Sciences finally identified the jaws but says he doesn’t know which of several wolf eel species it is, but the genus is Anarhichas. And it’s not a true eel, he says, but a type of fish that is edible.

Meanwhile, the question remains: How did a deepwater marine species wind up more than 50 miles from the nearest beach? (A saltwater eel, it could not have swum up the Delaware River.)

Lundberg’s best guess is that locals caught it while fishing at the Jersey Shore. Or found it while beachcombing.