Australian scientists this past week found a weird – and slightly horrifying – fanged alien fish at the bottom of the ocean.
Living in a volcano.
Scientists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, or CSIRO, made the discovery of the scaleless blackfish as they explored the ocean depths off the coast of Australia.
Though it resembles something you’d more likely see from the “Alien” film franchise, scientists assure us it’s a fish. And if there’s any better news, it’s only slightly bigger than the size of your fingertip.
Hopefully its big brother isn’t swimming around somewhere, undiscovered and waiting to be found.
The scaleless blackfish wasn’t the only unique discovery made by CSIRO – they also found an eel-like idiacanthidae and another fish from your nightmares, a chauliodontidae, which looks like an angrier
angler fish.
Other fish found were more easily identifiable – including mahi mahi – mostly because they were larval versions of fish and lobsters farmed in Australia. UNSW marine biologist Professor Iain Suthers said the team was shocked to find an eddy off Sydney was a hotspot for these larvae and other critters.
“We had thought fish only developed in coastal estuaries, and that once larvae were swept out to sea that was end of them,” Suthers said. “But in fact, these eddies are nursery grounds for commercial fisheries along the east coast of Australia.”
So, if you’re planning on visiting Australia in the coming months, enter the ocean at your own risk.
[via CSIRO News Blog]
