Australian Researchers Rediscover a ‘Faceless’ Fish that was Missing for More than 100 Years

Researchers from Museums Victoria and the Australian government’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) have discovered a ‘faceless’ deep-sea fish in Australia that was missing for more than 100 years.

The fish, according to experts, had not been spotted in waters off Australia since 1873.

These researchers are currently on a month-long mission off the east coast to find out what’s lurking deep down in the ocean.

“It’s seriously out of the ordinary,” said Dianne Bray, from the Vertebrate Zoology department at Museum Victoria.

“It came up from a depth of about 4,000 meters off the Newcastle region of New South Wales, and we had no idea what it was. Literally, we couldn’t see any kind of eyes on the outside,” Bray said who is currently on board the research vessel Investigator.

The 40-cm-long “faceless” fish was found 4 km below sea level when scientists were trawling the depths of a massive abyss off Australia’s east coast. The scientific name of this fish in Typhlonus nasus, and researchers call it “Faceless Cusk.”

According to Dr Tim O’Hara, a senior curator of marine invertebrates at Museums Victoria and the expedition leader, in 1873, a similar fish had dredged up by a British ship near Papua New Guinea.

“This little fish looks amazing because the mouth is actually situated at the bottom of the animal so, when you look side-on, you can’t see any eyes, you can’t see any nose or gills or mouth,” O’Hara said.

“It looks like two rear-ends on a fish, really.”

This survey of commonwealth marine reserves extending from northern Tasmania to central Queensland commenced on 15 May, and is due to end on June 15. There are 27 scientists, 13 technicians and 20 crew members onboard the Investigator research vessel.

“The experts tell me that about a third of all specimens coming on board are new totally new to science,” O’Hara said.

“They aren’t all as spectacular as the faceless fish but there’s a lot of sea fleas and worms and crabs and other things that are totally new and no one has seen them ever before.”