Most thick - sea angler fish looking like animal from another earthly concern , but the newest species , discovered by a researcher at Nova Southeastern University ’s ( NSU ) Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography , is the strangest - depend yet .
Tracey Sutton , Ph.D. , discovered the animal — a novel coinage of Ceratioid anglerfish calledLasiognathus dinema — in the northern Gulf of Mexico at depth between 3281 feet and 4921 pes . Sutton and the University of Washington ’s Theodore Pietsch , Ph . D.,formally described the newly discover Pisces in the journalCopeia .
Anglerfish live at depths where brightness from the airfoil can not sink in , and the females pull target with flashing bioluminescent entice , or escas , attach to their capitulum . trust they ’ve found a meal , the fair game approaches the monkfish — and becomes a repast itself .
Males are much smaller than female and , in some metal money , actuallyattach themselves to the female , losing incidental parts like eyes and fin , and provide spermatozoon when it ’s time to spawn . ( John Sparks , a conservator in the American Museum of Natural History ’s Department of Ichthyology , toldmental_flosslast yearthat only five of 11 coinage in the suborderCeratioideihave this parasite - host family relationship , and there ’s no information useable yet about how this newest species does the deed . )
concord to the paper , this Modern metal money , described from three female person , is “ not specially alike to any of the five antecedently described members of the genus . ” specially exciting is the animal ’s esca , which , the scientist spell , is “ cylindrical … bearing three lightly pigment , strongly sheer bony hooks and a pair of filiform , tapering prolongation , ” which are honored in its scientific name : Dinemacomes from the Greekdi , for two , andnema , for thread .
" Finding this novel species reinforces the notion that our inventory of life in the huge sea interior is far from complete , " Sutton articulate in apress sacking . " Every research trip is an escapade and another opportunity to learn about our planet and the varied animal who call it home . "
The three eccentric specimens will be housed in the world ’s largest deep - sea anglerfish collection at the University of Washington .
