Oneirodes carlsbergi

Oneirodes carlsbergi
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Actinopterygii
Order:	Lophiiformes
Family:	Oneirodidae
Genus:	Oneirodes
Species:	O. carlsbergi
Binomial name
Oneirodes carlsbergi (Regan and Trewavas, 1932)
Synonyms
Dolopichthys carlsbergi Regan & Trewavas, 1932 Dolopichthys inimicus Fraser-Brunner, 1935

Oneirodes carlsbergi is a species of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family Oneirodidae, the dreamers, a family of deep-sea anglerfishes. This fish is found mainly in the tropical eastern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Taxonomy

Oneirodes carlsbergi was first formally described as Dolopichthys carlsbergi in 1932 by the British ichthyologists Charles Tate Regan and Ethelwynn Trewavas with its type locality given as the Gulf of Panama at 6°40'N, 80°47'W, station 1206 from a depth of around 600 m (2,000 ft). This species is now classified within the genus Oneirodes and the 5th edition of Fishes of the World classifies that genus in the family Oneirodidae in the suborder Ceratioidei of the anglerfish order Lophiiformes.

Etymology

Oneirodes carlsbergi belongs to the genus Oneirodes, this name means "dream-like". Oneirodes was named by Christian Frederik Lütken who did not explain this choice of name, David Starr Jordan and Barton Warren Evermann suggested in 1898 that the name referred to the small, skin-covered eyes. Alternatively, in 2009 Theodore Wells Pietsch III proposed that the name was given because a “fish so strange and marvelous that it could only be imagined in the dark of the night during a state of unconsciousness”. The specific name honours the Carlsberg Foundation which funded the research cruise of the fisheries research vessel Dana on which the holotype was collected.

Description

Oneirodes carlsbergi has metamorphosed females that have the characteristic features of its genus but is distinguished from other species in the genus by the morphology of its esca, or lure. This has an elongated tapering and internally pigmentedfront appendeage, this grows relatively longer as the fish grows, and has two unpigmented filaments near its tip. There is a central appendage on the esca which is typically made up of many branched, unpigmented filaments, each with filaments coming off their central parts. The pailla at the end of the esca is truncated, occasionally this has a distal spot of dark pigment near its tip and the crescent-shaped posterior appendage of the esca is laterally compressed, sometimes with pigment on its matgin tworads its tip. There is also an unpigmented filamentous appendage on each side of the esca and no escal appendages in front of those. They alao have between 1 and 5 teeth on the first epibrachial, teeth on the second pharyngobranchial, between 29 and 180 teeth on the upper jaw and 53 to 160 teeth on the lower jaw while there are 4 to 10 vomerine teeth. The maximum published standard length for this species is 22.2 cm (8.7 in).

Distribution and habitat

Oneirodes carlsbergi is mesopelagic and bathypelagic, living at depths of 100–2,000 m (330–6,560 ft) in tropical to temperate parts of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It has also been found in the Banda Sea. In the eastern Atlantic it is found between 18°N and 8°S but there have been individual records from off Iceland and off Ireland. In the Pacific most records come from the Eastern Pacific, a few records from the central equatorial Pacific and single specimens from the Java and Banda Seas and a few from the South China Sea off Taiwan.