Red-fingered Anglerfish is a New Genus of Frogfish

Posted on August 11, 2015

The red-fingered anglerfish (Porophryne erythrodactylus) is a new genus and species of frogfish. The new species was identified by scientists from the University of Washington. The fish is known for its color-changing ability and for its red finger-like fins.

A sole red-fingered anglerfish specimen was discovered in Australia's Botany Bay in 1980. The elusive fish disappeared but was rediscovered again in the Bay in 2005. The fish was identified as a new genus and species through DNA sequencing.

UW fisheries professor Ted Pietsch says in a statement, "To find something on the genus level, a step above species, is pretty spectacular. People have been diving and collecting in that location for hundreds of years and publishing vigorously for 100 years or more, and we find something now no one else has seen."

The new species is found only off the coast of Sydney but frogfish are found worldwide. They move little and wait for other fish to approach them. Frogfish can open their mouths very wide and rapidly suck in prey and swallow it whole. They have a special muscle in their esophagus that help keeps swallowed prey from escaping. They can also expand their stomachs to digest the captured fish. Here is a video of a frogfish hunting.

A research paper on the new frogfish can be found here in the journal, Copeia.



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