Chimaera monstrosa
When visiting beautiful Trondheim, Peter Verhoog of Dutch Shark Society seized the opportunity to dive in a dark fjord, and captured to ‘new’ species for our Society. The first species was Chimaera monstrosa.
Chimaeras are cartilaginous fishes in the order Chimaeriformes, known informally as ghost sharks, rat fish (not to be confused with the rattails), spookfish (not to be confused with the true spookfish of the familyOpisthoproctidae), or rabbit fish (not to be confused with the true rabbitfishes of the family Siganidae).
At one time, a “diverse and abundant” group (based on the fossil record), their closest living relatives are sharks, though in evolutionary terms, they branched off from sharks nearly 400 million years ago and have remained isolated ever since. Today, they are largely confined to deep water.
The Status of this species on the IUCN Red List is Near Threatened.
Peter had the privilege of meeting a beautiful Chimaera at a relatively ‘shallow depth’: 40 metres. Read more at: http://www.fishbase.se/summary/Chimaera-monstrosa.html
The second species was the velvet belly laternshark (Etmopterus spinax), also typical deepsea species. It is of the most abundant deep-sea sharks in the northeastern Atlantic. For now, this beautiful little creature is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List.
A velvet belly lantern shark
Read more on: http://fishbase.org/
