New batfish species found under U.S. Gulf oil spill

Source: Reuters

New batfish species found under U.S. Gulf oil spill

09 July 2010 | 12:43:01 AM | Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Researchers have discovered two previously unknown species of bottom-dwelling fish in the Gulf of Mexico, living right in the area affected by the BP oil spill.

Researchers identified new species of pancake batfishes, a flat fish rarely seen because of the dark depths they favour. They are named for the clumsy way they "walk" along the sea bottom, like a bat crawling.

"One of the fishes that we describe is completely restricted to the oil spill area," John Sparks of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, said in a statement released on Thursday.

"If we are still finding new species of fishes in the Gulf, imagine how much diversity, especially microdiversity, is out there that we do not know about."

Writing in the Journal of Fish Biology, Sparks and his colleagues named the species as Halieutichthys intermedius and H. bispinosus. A third already known species called H. aculeatus also only lives in waters affected by the spill, they said.

Read more: http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1297252/New-batfish-species-found-under-U.S.-Gulf-oil-spill

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http://www.physorg.com/news197806796.html

Scientists describe two new species of fish from area engulfed by oil spill

Although the Gulf of Mexico has been intensively surveyed by scientists and picked over by fishermen, it is still home to fishes that are waiting to be described. New research published in the Journal of Fish Biology describes two new species of pancake batfishes (Halieutichthys intermedius and H. bispinosus) and re-describes another (H. aculeatus), all of which live in waters either partially or fully encompassed by the recent oil spill.

nt

OH! Wait - that's Sarah Palin! :crazy: I misread the title on the OP, and thought they'd discovered Bachmann's family tree. But I quickly realized it was batFISH, not batSHIT.

:rofl:

...to the Batfishmobile!

Hope for the former, but it's probably the latter.

for some Republican to claim the spill is a "good" thing, since it lead to scientific discovery...

:cry:

side view


So cute... I hope they can be saved :(

Looks as though that critter is getting ready to start walking up the shoreline in another couple hundred thousand or million years.

That is, if we doesn't kill them all off.

Haele

:woohoo::hi::patriot:

just sadness. :cry: