So What Do You Call A Deep Sea Fish With No Eyes…?

Featured Image Credit: Dianne J. Bray / Museum Victoria

Any time researchers decide to take their vessels and start looking to abyssal ocean levels for new species as well as documenting the other interesting life in the area, they always seem to come back with some seriously weird-looking stuff, both that we’ve seen before… and some that we haven’t.

Recently, a team aboard CSIRO RV (or, Research Vessel) Investigator has found a… pretty strange creature. It has a mouth, and some nostrils, but… the eyes? Noticeably not there.

Image Credit: ABC News

The fish does have eyes, of course. They’re apparently deeper below the surface and not visible. Its mouth is also underneath its body.

It’s not a new find, exactly. But it’s been about a century since the creature has shown its… face— or lack thereof— to scientists. The first catch and sighting was in the Coral Sea in 1873 by the scientist crew of the HMS Challenger.

The scientists have made it a mission to find, bring in, sort, and identify as many new creatures as they can along a stretch of seven Commonwealth Marine Reserves (CMRs).

Image Credit: Commonwealth of Australia

They’ve found lots of bizarre-sounding (and bizarre looking!) things during their time so far, “On the video camera we saw a kind of chimaera that whizzed by – that’s very, very rare in Australian waters,” Dianne Bray from Museums Victoria shared with ABC News. She also reported that they had seen “a fish with photosensitive plates that sit on the top of its head, tripod fish that sit up on their fins and face into the current.”

But according to Ms. Bray, the faceless fish was a “highlight” of the expedition for them.

And as for what you call this fish with no eyes? Some might say it’s a “Fsh”, but because scientists have given it a real name, you can also call it a Faceless Cusk or Typhlonus nasus.