Saturday, July 4, 2009

Goblin girl on... new locations for goblin sharks!

I recently recieved a paper called "New Findings of Rare Fish Species from Families Mitsukurinidae (Chondrichthyes), Muraenidae, Lophiidae, Macrouridae, and Psychrolutidae (Teleostei) on Raises of the Atlantic Ocean with the Description of Gymnothorax walvisensis sp. nova" by A. M. Prokofiev and by A. M. Prokofiev and E. I. Kukuev 2009. They reported two findings of goblin sharks from the Mid-Atlantic ridge. The area is called Vavilov seamount (see pic to the left).

When I searched for an other paper they referred to in the paper mentioned above, I found an other paper called "Insufficiently studied fishes of the open ocean - Ichthyofauna of Corner Mountains and New England Seamounts" by Kukuyev from 1982. In this paper they tell about 9 goblin sharks that also were caught at the Mid-Atlantic ridge, but on a different location (see pic with small yellow dot in the middle, showing the location). The depth was 2000 - 4100 m (!). Not a diveable depth! It's always fascinating that something can live at these depths, that there is huge mountain chain that we can't see...

We have a real heat wave in Sweden at the moment. I think I will stay inside - where it is not cold, but cooler at least! - and read the new book "Oceanic Anglerfishes - extraordinary diversity in the deep sea" by Theodore W. Pietsch...
For links to summary of the first paper and the full text of the second, see my personal homepage http://blogs.myspace.com/tenguzame