Little-known pancake batfish could be one of oil spill's early victims

By Kelly Lynch, CNN
June 17, 2010 — Updated 0058 GMT (0858 HKT) (CNN) — The Deepwater Horizon oil spill has already claimed many victims — from pelicans to oyster beds and precious marshland. But there may be one more: a species only just recently discovered. Scientifically known as halieutichthys aculeatus, it is not a thing of beauty. But it lives an anonymous sort of existence on the seabed of the Gulf, some 1,500 feet below the waves and — like all marine life in the gulf — plays its role in the food chain. Its more digestible name is the Louisiana pancake batfish. And if oil stays deep under water, the gulf could lose it before it’s even officially recognized as a species. While scientists are uncertain what the long-range effects of the massive spill will be on the gulf’s delicate balance of life and death and its complex food chain, the little-known Louisiana pancake batfish is a case in point of one species whose very existence is in that balance. Dr. Prosanta Chakrabarty, an ichthyologist — otherwise known as a fish biologist — and assistant professor at Louisiana State University, found himself face-to-face with the little fish during a deep-sea trawl in the gulf with the university last fall. “We were lucky to get four or five specimens,” Chakrabarty said. “The variation we found was enough for me to be convinced that there was something new.” … Pancake batfish spend most of their days resting on the sandy bottom of the gulf. Chakrabarty says it’s impossible to tell how many of them are in existence. “During my trawl with LSU, we caught probably 100,000 fish and three of them were pancake batfish. It’s a hard thing to guess from that what their population is, but since they’re rare in museums, they’re probably rare in the wild,” Chakrabarty said. … “We’re making a trade-off between two habitats and putting the more fragile one at risk. If we lose the [pancake batfish], we’re losing a big part of evolutionary history,” Chakrabarty said. Because it lives in the deep, the pancake batfish is not threatened by tar balls or the surface sheen of oil — but by undersea oil plumes identified by researchers from the University of South Florida. …