May 14, 2014
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Thanks to a lot of hard work and a little luck – two scientists from the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution have identified a mysterious larval fish and the same fish in its adult stage as a new species of sea bass.
Most fish that live in the ocean have a pelagic larval stage that floats inside the surface or near-surface currents, an ecosystem very distinct from the one they occupy as adults. Two distinct environments often call for two distinct physiques and appearances to maximize the odds of survival, leading to larvae that appear very different from the adults of the same species.
The newly identified fish, described in a new report published on Tuesday in the journal PLOS ONE, first came to the attention of researchers via a photograph in a previous study. It was identified as a member of the sea bass family Serranidae, but its seven very elongated dorsal-fin spines made it a very unique looking specimen.
“This feature isn’t known in any Atlantic sea bass larvae, but it is similar to one species of Indo-Pacific sea bass,” said study author David Johnson, a zoologist at the Smithsonian museum. “We initially thought the larva must have been caught in the Indo-Pacific Ocean, but we were wrong.”
However, the fish larva in the photo was identified as being captured in the Florida Straits — the body of water located between Florida and Cuba.
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