Explorers discover ‘faceless fish’ from deep-sea abyss

Nature never fails to amaze people. Recently, Australian scientists have discovered a fish with no face in a world-first exploration of a deep-sea abyss.

The crew on board the CSIRO’s (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) Investigator observed the Commonwealth marine reserves from northern Tasmania up to central Queensland. The team dragged small nets from a four kilometers deep abyss that was equipped with an underwater camera.

Referring to the discovery as ‘awesome’, Di Bray from Museums Victoria informed ABC, “On the video camera we saw a kind of chimera that whizzed by - that's very, very rare in Australian waters. We've 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.”

However, at such a depth of 4000 meters off Jervis Bay, the team caught the odd faceless fish to which Bray exclaimed was a highlight. She believes that the findings so far have ranged from being curious to being bizarre, reported Daily Mail.

The fish contains nostrils and a mouth but no face. As per the researchers, the unusual creature might have eyes under the surface which are not visible to the naked eye.

Bray mentioned, “We’re collecting things we don’t know from Australian waters. We think a lot of them are going to be new… and we’re not even scratching the surface of what we know about our abyssal plain fishes.”

It is also said that the fish had been caught before back in 1870s in the Coral Sea by HMS Challenger’s pioneering scientific crew.