ABC’s of the Royal BC Museum Assfish, Brotulas and Cusk-eels By Gavin Hanke, Curator, Vertabrate Zoology
I
t’s a misconception that humans have already discovered every species of flora and fauna on our planet. In fact, we’re still discovering species of fish here in waters off the BC coast – and oddly enough, within our own collections at the Royal BC Museum.
Cusk-eels and brotulas are an overlooked group of fishes – they aren’t that attractive, they’re not commercially important and most live in deep-water ocean. In other words, out of sight, out of mind. Until now, only Giant Cusk-eels (Spectrunculus grandis) and the Red Brotula (Brosmophycis marginata) were known to British Columbia waters. The Red Brotula is found from Alaska to Baja at depths of three to 256 metres, but is rarely collected for the Royal BC Museum. The Giant Cusk-eel is circumglobal, and in our region, extends from Alaska south to California at depths of 800 to 6,273 metres. We only have four Spectrunculus in our ichthyology collection. Several new cusk-eels and brotulas have been found because of collaborative work with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) using the CCGS W.E. Ricker, the CCGS Neocaligus, and from the commercial fishery along the west side of Vancouver Island and Strait of Georgia. 22
What’s inSight
Winter 2014
Our first specimen of the Spotted Cusk-eel (Chilara taylori) was caught in a prawn trap brought aboard M/V Helm’s Deep. The second was brought aboard the CCGS Neocaligus. These weren’t huge range extensions, but we now know Spotted Cusk-eels range from southern BC to Ecuador. The first (and only) specimen we have of the Black Brotula (Cherublemma emmelas) was spotted by Jody Riley while working for Archipelago Marine Research Ltd.’s fishery observer program. Black Brotulas were previously thought to range from Baja to northern Chile in the eastern tropical Pacific from 70 to 1,010 metre depth, but our single specimen from Kyuquot Canyon extends the species’ range roughly 2,890 kilometres north. The Bony-eared Assfish (Acanthonus armatus) is unmistakable and ranges through temperate and tropical seas at 1,171 to 4,415 metres depth. The species has been caught offshore of Colombia and Japan, but not any closer – until now. Our first and only specimen was caught southwest of Triangle Island at 1,778 metres, and represents the first record for the northeast Pacific. Bassozetus zenkevitchi, ranges from 200–6,930 metres in the Pacific off the shores of Honshu, Japan, Kamchatka, Russia, in the Bering
Sea, and northwest of Hawaii. We now have four specimens from our coast, caught between 1,909 and 2,125 metres depth. I expect these fishes also will be found in Washington and farther south. Another fish without a common name, Porogadus promelas, has been found near the Tuzo Wilson Seamounts, Queen Charlotte Sound. The first five specimens ever caught were from the Gulf of California (Gilbert 1891). As far as I know, this fish represents the northern-most record for Porogadus in the Pacific Ocean and extends the species’ range at least 3,000 kilometres. Like the Porogadus, the Rubynose Brotula (Cataetyx rubrirostris), was collected just east of the Tuzo Wilson Seamounts. Rubynose Brotulas are widespread in the Pacific, and our fish represents the first record in British Columbia and a 750 km CCGS W.E. Ricker