Fish mystery

In 2004 I took pictures of a very extraordinary fish in Cozumel. This was definitely not your typical Caribbean reef fish. I sent the pictures to Reef.org. The pictures were subsequently forwarded to John Paxton from the Australian Museum in Sidney and Dave Johnson from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. They and their associates have been researching this “whalefish” for some years. They were interested in the pictures. I’m humbled that two are currently being used in their recently released online articles. Their story has received extensive coverage. Following are a few links:

ScienceNews.org

Associated Press

Royal Society, Biology Letters

Radio New Zealand interview with John Paxton Click on Thursday, January 29, Deep Sea Fish Mystery. The audio will be available for one week.

CBC/Radio-Canada interview with Dave Johnson Click on Listen to Part 3 and advance 16 minutes into the program.

For those who've forgotten, Don's original posting was a subject of some discussion.

Congrats, and good to see you've finally received a conclusive response!

John Paxton has been researching this species, the whalefish for four decades... I find this all quite interesting. These fellows would be interested if any additional pictures surfaced of this larvae stage, the tapetail with the long streamer.