A freaky-looking fish that had been recently discovered by Nunavut fishermen has finally been identified.
The mysterious fish, with its whiplike tail and cone shaped nose, has been identified as a Long Nosed Chimaera. Its identity had been a mystery for some time afer it had been captured off the Hudson Strait in Northeastern Canada.
The fishermen's surprise isn't out of the ordinary: the Long Nosed Chimaera, although present in oceans all over the world, normally live in depths of 6,000 feet, making them a rare sight for the average fisherman.
A researcher for the Ocean Tracking Network, Nigel Hussey, solved the mystery of the monstrous fish, saying that it was only the second time that a Long Nosed Chimaera has been documented in the region.
"Potentially, if we fish deeper, maybe between 1,000 and 2,000 meters, we could find that there's actually quite a lot of them," Hussey added. "We just don't know."
A picture of the freaky fish had made its rounds on the internet before being correctly identified. Some netizens had even incorrectly classified the mysterious fish as a goblin shark.
Long Nosed Chimaeras actually use their bizarre features to their advantage in the deep sea (no, not to scare away all potential predators): their enlarged snouts have sensory endings that help them search for food in the dark. They also have an increasingly poisonous spine on their primary dorsal fin.
They are distantly realted to sharks and stingrays, and are sometimes (incorrectly) called the ghost shark.
Here is a video of a Long Nosed Chimaera in its natural habitat:
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