Residents of the Daluo village in China’s Guangxi province have caught several weird looking yellow fishes in a cave lake located 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) below ground.

Experts working at the Bama County and Guangxi provincial aquatics institutes have been unable to indentify the fish, which sports a flat mouth shaped almost like the bill of a duck and eye-catching red lips. The mysterious creature is also adorned with a long, slim “moustache”.

According to Li Zuneng, head of the village, members of his community have heard stories about this outlandish fish told by the oldest villagers, but many had assumed that it was some type of fairytale creature. Up until now, no one from the younger generations had actually seen the deep dweller.

The cave where the fish lives is named Fu Yuan Dong, which means Cave of Fortune.

Four new species of King crab has been discovered in the Smithsonian Collections of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington.

Lithodes galapagensis – Picture by NOCS

The four species have been formally described by Sally Hall, a PhD student at the University of Southampton* who discovered the species in the museum. All four hail from the deep sea but from very different parts of the globe. Paralomis nivosa is native to Philippine waters, Paralomis makarovi comes from the cold Bering Sea, Paralomis alcockiana lives off the coast of South Carolina, USA, and Lithodes galapagensis is the only king crab ever recorded from the Galapagos archipelago.

“King crabs include some of the largest crustaceans currently inhabiting Earth and are fished by humans, particularly from the shallower waters of the polar regions”, Hall explained. “The new discoveries increase the total number of king crab species known to 113.”

Hall believes that even more species of King crab will be found in the future.
“The oceans off eastern Africa, the Indian Ocean and the Southern Ocean are all particularly poorly sampled,” she said. “We need to know which king crab species live where before we can fully understand their ecology and evolutionary success.”

* The University of Southampton’s School of Ocean and Earth Science (SOES) at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS)

For the first time since 1947, a new species of cartilaginous fish has been described from Californian waters. The new species – Hydrolagus melanophasma – belongs to a group of sharks known as Chimaeras or ghostsharks.

Chimaeras are fairly closely related to the true sharks, but their evolutionary lineage branched off from the true sharks nearly 400 million years ago. Just like sharks, ghostsharks have cartilage skeletons instead of bony skeletons and they carry out internal fertilization using claspers. Unlike the true sharks however, males of the Chimaera group are fitted with retractable sexual appendages on the forehead and in front of the pelvic fins. Most known species also have a venomous spine in front of the dorsal fin.

The new species, the Eastern Pacific black ghostshark, was caught and preserved as early as the 1960s but hasn’t been formally named and described until know since its taxonomic relationships with other Chimaeras remained unclear. It is now placed in the genus Hydrolagus – the water rabbits – a genus named after the grinding tooth plates used by its members; plates somewhat similar to the teeth of a rabbit.

You can find out more about Hydrolagus melanophasma in the September issue of the journal Zootaxa. The article in which the new species was described is the result of the combined efforts of a team of scientists, including Academy Research Associates David Ebert and Douglas J. Long, graduate student Kelsey James from the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, and Dominique Didier from Millersville University in Pennsylvania.

When a six-foot-long gelatinous animal turned up off Brazil’s Bahia cost, initial accounts quoted scientists calling the creature “completely new, scientifically speaking.” However, fish experts taking a closer look at the video footage have now managed to identify it as being a member of Ateleopodidae, an elusive family of deep-sea fish known as jellynoses or tadpole fish.

“As soon as I saw it, I knew what it was,” said Dave Johnson, ichthyologist at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

The family Ateleopodidae is a group of deep-dwelling fishes known for their soft, blunt noses, small teeth, and scaleless, tapered bodies.

Despite being identified by science as early as the 1840s, we still know very little about this family and only about a dozen species have been named and described. They are found at depths ranging from about 1,300 to 2,300 feet (400 to 700 meters), where the lack of oxygen and nutrients makes being a gelatinous blob with very little muscle tissue superior to having a strong, burly body.

“You don’t ever see any hard, muscular fishes like tuna in the deep sea,” Johnson said, since at those depths there aren’t enough oxygen and nutrients to feed dense muscle tissue.

The Ateleopodidae fish was found floating dead by researchers from the Brazilian TAMAR Program, a sea turtle conservation group. If this species is already known to science or not remains unclear, but it is certainly the first of its kind ever to be identified in Brazilian waters.

“I’ve never heard of anything [like this] caught off the Brazil coast at all,” says marine biologist Jon Moore of Florida Atlantic University who has studied the diets of Ateleopodidae fish.

You can watch a movie here.

For anyone interested in learning more about the fascinating creatures inhabiting the deep and chilly waters of the Canadian Basin, details of a 2005 research mission has now been published in the journal Deep Sea Research Part II.

“There were a lot of surprises,” says biologist Dr Kevin Raskoff of Monterey Peninsula College in California, US, a leading member of the dive team.

“One thing was just how many different jellies there were, and the sizes of their populations. Some were somewhat well known from other oceans, but had not previously been found in the Arctic. That caused us to rethink our ideas about what the typical habitat would be for the species. We also discovered a number of new species that had not been found before.”

The deep Arctic Ocean is isolated from much of the other seas and the Canadian Basin even more so since it contains deep-sea ridges that separate the resident deep-dwellers into comparatively small compartmentalized areas.

To learn more about this inaccessible part of our planet, an international team of scientists conducted a series of deep-sea dives using a remote operated vehicle (ROV) capable of filming and photographing in dark, high-pressure conditions. During a series of dives to depths of 3000 meters, over 50 different types of viscous, jelly-like creatures were caught on tape. Surprisingly, one of the most commonly seen animals in this arctic deep turned out to be a type of jellyfish never before described by science.

“Probably the single most interesting discovery was a new species of a small blue jellyfish, from a group called the Narcomedusae,” says Dr Raskoff. “It was also the third most common jellyfish found on the cruise, which is really surprising when you think about the fact that even the most common species in the area can be totally new and unexpected species.”

“You don’t have to go too far to find interesting areas to study, you just have to dive deep,” Dr Raskoff explains.

The team also encountered large amounts of Sminthea arctica, a jellyfish found down to a depth of 2,100 meters, as well as various ctenophores and siphonophores.

The newly discovered jellyfish won’t be formally described until later this year, but has already been classified within its own genus. Just like all the other members of the Narcomedusae group, this small blue jelly distinguish itself from typical jellyfish by holding its tentacles over its belly as it swims instead of letting them drift behind in the water.

The 2005 expedition was funded primarily by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research.

A previously unknown species of crustacean and two previously unknown species of annelid worms have been discovered during a cave dive near Lanzarote in the Canary Islands off the coast of northern Africa. The discoveries were made by a team of international scientists and cave divers exploring the Tunnel de la Atlantida – the longest submarine lava tube in the world.

The crustacean belongs to the genus Speleonectes in the class Remipedia, while the annelid worms are members of the class Polychaeta.

The crustacean has been named Speleonectes atlantida, after the cave system in which it lives. It looks a lot like its close relative Speleonectes ondinae which was discovered in the same lava tube in 1985. The two crustaceans may have diverged into separate species some 20,000 years ago after the Monte Corona volcano had erupted, forming the famous six-kilometre long lava tube.

Until quite recently, the class Remipedia was unknown to science. The first member of this class was found in 1979 by divers exploring a marine system in the Bahamas archipelago. Since then, 22 Remipedia species have been named and described. Most of them live in Central America, from the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico through the north-eastern Caribbean. However, two species are instead found in caves in Lanzarote and Western Australia. The existence of these wayward species puzzles the scientists, since it is assumed that these small eyeless cave-dwellers would not be able to simply swim from the Caribbean to West Africa and Western Australia. One theory suggests that this class might be a very old crustacean group that was already widespread 200 million years ago. If this is true, the two species living off Lanzarote became isolated from the Caribbean group by the formation of the Atlantic Ocean.

As mentioned above, members of the class Remipedia live in dark submarine caves and have no eyes. Instead, they find their way around using long antennae. The heads of these predatory crustaceans are equipped with prehensile limbs and poisonous fangs.

The results of the lava cave exploration will be published in a special issue of the Springer journal Marine Biodiversity in September 2009.

The cave exploration team consisted of scientists from Texas A&M University and Pennsylvania State University in the USA, the University of La Laguna in Spain, and the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover and the University of Hamburg, both in Germany.

A new species of wrasse living off the Brazilian coast has been described by Osmar Luiz, Jr, Carlos Ferreira and Luiz Rocha. The new species has been named Halichoeres sazimai after Brazilian ichthyologist Ivan Sazima from Universidade Estadual de Campinas in São Paolo.

Halichoeres sazimai inhabit the Western South Atlantic off the southern and south-eastern coasts of Brazil where researchers regularly saw it foraging solitary on sand bottoms immediately adjacent to the lower end of rocky reefs. Occasionally, harems consisting of 5-10 specimens were also spotted. The fish was sometimes observed over the reefs as well, but usually stayed at a dept of at least 20 metres. According to the researchers, this may have to do with a preference for water colder than 18° C.

Halichoeres sazimai separates itself from its close relatives by having a white body adorned with a zigzag patterned midline stripe which is yellow or golden in females and juveniles and black and brownish in terminal males.

Sorry i have not found a pic of this species.

The paper has been published in the journal Zootaxa.
“OJ, Jr, Luiz, CEL Ferreira and LA Rocha (2009) Halichoeres sazimai, a new species of wrasse (Perciformes: Labridae) from the Western South Atlantic. Zootaxa 2092, pp. 37–46.”

U.S. researchers John F. Switzer* and Robert M. Wood** have described a new species of darter from the Meramec River drainage of Missouri, USA. The new species has been named Etheostoma erythrozonum and is the first known fish species endemic to the Meramec River drainage. Its common name is Meramec Saddled Darter.

Etheostoma erythrozonum is a sister species of the Missouri Saddled Darter, Etheostoma tetrazonum, an inhabitant of the Gasconade River, Osage River, and Moreau River drainages. The Missouri Saddled Darter is one of several darter species endemic to the northern Ozark region of Missouri. When E. tetrazonum was first described, it was only known to exist in the

Osage and Gasconade River systems. However, within a year of its description, individuals of E. tetrazonum were identified from the Meramec River system, a tributary of the Mississippi River. Since then the distribution of E. tetrazonum has been considered to include the Meramec, Gasconade, Osage, and MoreauRiver systems.

In 1984, the first sign of E. tetrazonum actually being more than one species was found when an electrophoretic analysis unveiled considerable genetic divergence between populations of E. tetrazonum from the Meramec and Osage River drainages. This notion has now been supported by a recent molecular phylogenetic analysis of 13 populations of E. tetrazonum,

As a result, the specimens living in the Meramec River drainage have now been recognized as a separate species and the name E. tetrazonum will from now on only pertain to the specimens native to the Moreau, Osage, and Gasconade River drainages. As mentioned above, the Meramec River drainage species has been given the name Etheostoma erythrozonum.

E. erythrozonum is very similar to E. tetrazonum but without the prominent blue-green colouration. Some male E. erythrozonum darters do have a blue spinous dorsal fin base, but the blue colour is inconspicuous and never as outstanding as in E. tetrazon. (The anal fin of E. erythrozonum is also blue-green.)

Male E. erythrozonum darters sport a horizontal red-orange stripe that runs along the lower sides of the body from the pelvic fins to the anal fin with an irregular dorsal margin, while the male E. tetrazonum darter has a dorsal stripe with a well-defined dorsal margin in. Another notable difference between the two species is how E. erythrozonum has a series of irregularly shaped red-orange blotches instead of the well defined vertical bars seen on male E. tetrazonum darters.

The paper has been published here in the journal Zootaxa. Picture is Available in the online publication.

* John F. Switzer, U.S. Geological Survey, Leetown Science Center, Aquatic Ecology Branch, Kearneysville, West Virginia

E-mail: jswitzer@usgs.gov

** Robert M. Wood, Department of Biology, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri

E-mail: wood2@slu.edu

Brachypopomus gauderio is not the only electric knifefish recently described from South America, U.S. researchers John P. Sullivan* and Carl D. Hopkins** have described another member of the genus Brachyhypopomus and given it the name Brachyhypopomus bullocki.

This new species is named in honour of Theodore Holmes Bullock, a renowned neurobiologist who died in 2005. Bullock was a pioneer of the comparative neurobiology of both invertebrates and vertebrates and is credited with the first physiological recordings from an electroreceptor and for championing electric fishes as a model system in neurobiology. The electric organ discharge waveform of Brachyhypopomus bullocki is biphasic, 0.9–1.6 milliseconds in duration, and the pulse rate varies from 20–80 Hz.

Brachyhypopomus bullocki is found throughout the Orinoco Basin in Venezuela and
Colombia. It can also be encountered in the in the Rio Branco drainage of Guyana and the Roraima State of Brazil, as well as in the upper part of Rio Negro near the mouth of Rio Branco.

Brachyhypopomus bullocki appears to prefer clear, shallow, standing water in open savannah, or savannah mixed with stands of Mauritia palm. It has also been collected among plants growing along the banks of small pools fed by streams. In Rio Negro, a specimen was found amongst palm leaf litter near the outlet of a black water stream.

Brachyhypopomus bullocki distinguishes itself from its close relatives by having larger eyes (comparative to the head), a short abdomen, and distally enlarged poorly ossified third and fourth branchiostegal rays.

The paper can be downloaded from Cornell University.

* John P. Sullivan, Department of Ichthyology, The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. Email: sullivan@ansp.org

** Carl D. Hopkins, Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell University, New York. Email: cdh8@cornell.edu

Brazilian ichthyologists Julia Giora and Luiz Malabarba have described a new species of electric knifefish and named it Brachypopomus gauderio.

The fish lives in the central, southern and coastal regions of the Rio Grande do Sul state in Brazil, as well as in Uruguay and Paraguay, and its name is derived from the word “gaúcho”, a local term denoting a person living in the countryside (pampas) of the Rio Grande do Sul state, southern Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina.

Brachypopomus gauderio inhabits river banks, slow-moving creeks, lagoons, and flooded areas with muddy or sandy bottoms and has only been found among surfacing or floating plants.

You can distinguish Brachypopomus gauderio from its close relatives by its yellow dorsal surface, and on the brown markings which form a reticulate pattern.

I have not been able to find a picture.

The description has been published in the journal Zootaxa.

”Giora, J and LR Malabarba (2009) Brachyhypopomus gauderio, new species, a new example of underestimated species diversity of electric fishes in the southern South America (Gymnotiformes: Hypopomidae). Zootaxa 2093, pp. 60–68.”