Merry fishmass everyone! Let’s take a look at just 12 discoveries made this year
On the first day of fishmass science gave to me, the yokozuna slickhead!
Video grab of a Narcetes shonanmaruae swimming. Credit Fujiwara et al (2021)
What a beauty! The yokozuna slickhead (Narcetes shonanmaruae) was 'discovered by science' in Suruga, Japan by Yoshihiro Fujiwara & fellow researchers. Here's three things that make this discovery super cool:
🐟 Suruga is heavily fished - and relatively well studied, making this discovery super-surprising
🐟 The slickhead stretches 1.4 meters in length and weighs in at 25 kg!
🐟 The researchers named the fish yokozuna, after the highest rank a sumo wrestler can reach.
Want to read the science? It's open access!
📸credit: Fujiwara et al. (2021)
On the second day of fishmass science gave to me, the Etelis boweni!
This gorgeous critter was discovered with the power of genetic analysis. Here’s three things that make this discovered particularly exciting:
🐟 The fish has a remarkable resemblance to Etelis carbunculus, though boweni is generally longer and has smaller eyes. Without genetic analysis, we probably would have never known that two species exist.
🐟 "boweni" is a homage to Brian Bowen, a researcher in Hawaii who uses genetics to discover more about our fishy friends.
🐟 Although this is a new species to science, apparently fishers have suspected for quite some time that boweni and carbunculus were two different species
To find out more, here's the (paywalled) science.
📸 credit: NOAA Fisheries
On the third day of fishmass science gave to me, the Paraliparis kadadakaleguak!
This deep sea critter 'discovered' in the Mariana Archipelago by NOAA scientists who were doing an assessment of deep-water shrimp. Here's three things that make this snailfish worthy of celebration:
🐟 Although the fish was caught back in the 1980s, it has only recently been described - and named by a high-schooler in Guam. In Chamorro (indigenous language of Guam and other Mariana Islands), kadada' kaleguak means 'short rib bone' - something that this particularly fish sports.
🐟 The fish was found at the same time as two other snailfish that have also just been named by schoolkids in Guam - the Paraliparis marianae (after the archipelago) and Paraliparis echongpachot (in Chamorro, echong pachot means crooked mouth).
🐟 Although we know of lots of different snailfish species, these are the first ones discovered in the Mariana Trench
Here's the (paywalled) science.
📸 credit: NOAA
On the fourth day of fishmass science gave to me, the "pandemic blenny"!
A male Coralliozetus clausus from Isla de Coco.
Well, no prizes for guessing the inspiration behind that name. Coralliozetus clausus, as its more formally known, was found off Isla del Coco. Here's three things that make this little fish fabulous:
🐡 Their small size and colour make them extremely difficult to spot. Of the 21 specimens collected by scientists, the largest is just 15mm in length.
🐡 The dark head of the fish appears to indicate that the fish is a breeding male. The females and juveniles that were found lacked this colouration.
🐡 The scientist who investigated this little fish lists it as just one of the twelve known endemic reef-associated cryptobenthic* fish from Isla del Coco.
*fish that live on or near the seafloor and tend to hide and/or are really well camouflaged.
Fancy learning more about how this blenny was identified? Check out the (paywalled) science.
📸 credit: Philip A. Hastings
On the fifth day of fishmass science gave to me, glow-in-the-dark-sharks!
Scientists discovered three species of bioluminescent sharks in the Chatham Rise just last year. Here's three things that make this sharks ultra-cool.
🦈 Most bioluminescent animals take advantage of a chemical reaction between luciferin & oxygen to produce their glow. These sharks don't seem to produce light in the same way. How do they do it? Well we aren’t sure yet…
🦈 At 1.8m in length the Kitefin Shark (Dalatias licha) - one of the three shark discovered - is the largest known bioluminescent animal.
🦈 The kitefin shark is particularly luminous on its underside, and darker on its back. Scientists think that the configuration can help keep the shark hidden from predators that may attack from above, but make catching prey lurking below easier.
Want to read the science? It's open access.
📸 credit: Mallefet et al. (2021)
On the sixth day of fishmass science gave to me, the eagle shark Aquilolamna milarcae!
The fossil of Aquilolamna milarcae.
We're talking fossil here - this critter lived around 93 million years ago! Here’s three fun things about this ancient predator.
🦈 While most fish are longer than they are wide, this eagle shark is wider than it is long! That's all down to it's super-long pectoral fins.
🦈 This fossil was found with no teeth, so scientists suspect it fed on plankton.
🦈 Before this fossil was found, only one order - the pachycormidae - were known to be planktivores in the Cretaceous period. Aquilolamna milarcae has been tentatively placed in the order Lamniformes.
Here's the (paywalled) science for your perusal.
📸 credit: Vullo et al. (2021)
On the seventh day of fishmass science gave to me, gar fish nerve networks!
Evolution history of visual system bilaterality. (Top) Simplified phylogenetic tree of vertebrates. Most teleost lineages lack ipsilateral visual projections, but in the most basally branching ray-finned fish and in lobe-finned fish, eyes project to both the ipsilateral and contralateral sides of the brain, as in tetrapods. (Bottom) Schematic drawings of visual system connectivity in a teleost, two non-teleosts (gar and lungfish), and a tetrapod. Left and right retinal projections are shown in orange and blue, respectively. From Vigouroux et al. (202
The network of nerves that connect a gar fish's eyes to its brain in a similar fashion to us humans. Here's two reasons why this is very cool.
👀 Scientists often study zebrafish to lean about human health, but zebra fish don't have the same eye-brain connection as humans. Scientists interested in eye-brain connections could learn a lot more from Gar than from zebra fish.
👀 Although we thought that the type of eye-brain wiring we sport evolved after the first land animal appeared, it now seems that it evolved 450 million years ago (100 million years more than we thought).
Check out the (paywalled) science.
📸 credit: Vigouroux et al. (2021)
On the eighth day of fishmass science gave to me moonfish fossils!
In particular, the 60 specimens found in the Eastern Desert in Egypt. Why is this so special?
🐟 This is the first time a moonfish fossil have been recorded from Africa.
🐟 You can still find moonfish alive today! Out of the 8 known species of moonfish, only one species exist though- the Mene maculata, which lives in the Indian and western Pacific Ocean.
🐟 The moonfish found in the Desert are part of a bigger collection, representing an entire fish community called the Ras Gharib A.
Here's the (paywalled) science.
📸 credit: El-Sayed et al. (2021)
On the ninth day of fishmass science gave to me two new gobies from Japan!
These new gobies are Callogobius albipunctatus sp. nov. & Callogobius dorsomaculatus sp. nov. Here’s a couple of cool things worth noting:
🌊 Wondering what the sp. nov. means? It's short of species nova, and is used when the binomial name (the genus the species comes from + the specific name of the species) is being used for the first time.
🌊These gobies were discovered by Emperor Emeritus Akihito. Yes that's right - an actual emperor! Or at least a retired emperor. Turns out Akihito has been very busy studying gobies, demonstrating that not all scientists have to work in academia.
See the (paywalled) science here
📸 credit: Akihito & Yuji Ikeda (2021)
On the tenth day of fishmass science gave to me biofluorescent fish in the Arctic!
A juvenile Liparis gibbus imaged under white light (top) and under fluorescent lighting (bottom) conditions.
This is a particularly exciting discovery for two reasons:
🤩 This is the first time that biofluorescent fish have been discovered in the Arctic.
🤩 The fish doesn't just emit one colour but two! These little fish (snailfish - Liparis gibbus) fluoresce red and green. This is a pretty rare phenomenon - or at least rarely observed by humans.
Be sure to check out this short video of the snailfish swimming.
Discover more in the open-access science paper here.
📸 credit: J. Sparks, D. Gruber, P. Kragh
On the eleventh day of fishmass science gave to me a carnivorous sea snail!
Holotype of Amoria thorae sp. nov. AMC.75849, dredged off Cape Moreton, SE QLD; A, Dorsal view; B, Ventral (apertural) view; C, Lateral view; D, View looking down on spire showing detail of protoconch.
Ok, so this isn’t a fish but it’s worth sharing because of the nature of the discovery.
🐚For over 50 years, Mrs Thora Whitehead from Brisbane, Australia, collected shells from around Australia’s coast. When Thora’s collection was donated to the Queensland Museum, curator Dr John Healy set to work assessing each and every specimen. His efforts were rewarded with this discovery!
🐚Thora’s collection contained over 200,000 shells!
🐚The sea snail is called Amoria thorae - a homage to Thora.
You can peruse the (open access) science here.
📸 credit: John M. Healy
On the Twelfth day of fishmass science gave to me the damselfish Dascyllus emamo!
This white-tailed damselfish from the Indo-Pacific is a classic example of a cryptic species - one that looks identical to another. Here’s why this discovery was particularly cool:
🐠 The method of identification is rather usual. Alongside genetic analysis, scientists used the sounds it emits to differentiate it from another damselfish species (Dascyllus aruanus).
🐠 Scientists have identified six sounds linked to different behaviours: conspecific (same-species) fighting, heterospecific (different species) fighting, conspecific chasing, heterospecific chasing, signal jumps and mating/visiting.
🐠 The name emamo comes from the name the locals of Bora Bora gave to the white-tailed damselfish in their particular area.
Check out the (paywalled) science here.
📸 credit: Eric Parmentier/University of Liège