There ’s a lot move on in the deep ocean that we do n’t have a go at it about or have n’t discovered yet . From over100 speciesrecently discovered off the seacoast of New Zealand to huge orbit ofseamountsdiscovered on the sea storey in the Pacific . Now , another new species has come to light and it ’s something of a touch .
Chimaeras are a group of Pisces that includeghost shark , also known as ratfishes , which are typically found in deep - sea home ground from around 500 meters ( 1,640 foot ) down or further . The species are n’t actually sharks at all but species of gristly fish . They are related to sharks but are thought to have diverged around 400 million years ago , according to theNational Marine Sanctuary Foundation . The member of these group are told aside by differences on their large schnozzle and , in the class Chimaeridae , the position of their anal retentive fins .
In October 2018 , a deep - sea survey gather a individual specimen at a profoundness of 772 - 775 meters ( 2,532 - 2,542 feet ) in the Andaman Sea off the seashore of Thailand . in the beginning reported asChimaera aff . macrospina , the team took further transmissible data point and conduct structural analysis and instead suggested that this is a new species .
The specie has been given the nameChimaera supapaein honor of Professor Supap Monkolprasit who died in 2013 and pay her full living to the discipline of cartilaginous fishes in Thailand .
chimera supapaecan be distinguished from otherghost sharksby their strange appearance . The fish has a massive school principal , with a short snout and large ellipse eye . The specimen that the team found is thought to be an immature male with a entire duration of 50.8 centimeters ( 20 inches ) .
Its eyes are immortalize as being opalescent park . monumental heads are n’t the only thing weird about specter sharks – one sketch took a faithful look at what they arehiding in their noggins .
In the novel study , the researchers comparedChimaerasupapaeto 11 other metal money of Chimaera . The young species is different to two other metal money ground on its color , as it is obscure brownish without any splodge , stripes , or spots . The team think that the young coinage belongs to its own clade as it is not close related toChimaera macrospina , an Australian species that it bear close forcible resemblance to .
" The discovery of newfangled species like this Chimera tells us how little we know about the maritime environs and how much is still to be explore , " Dr David Ebert , trail source of the study , toldLiveScience .
The paper is published inRaffles Bulletin of Zoology .
