Mysterious fish with whip-like tail and cone-shaped snout identified as a long-nosed chimaera

Freakish-looking denizens live at great depths and are rarely encountered; this is only the second ever documented off Canada's Hudson Strait region

Photo of long-nosed chimaera is courtesy of Jutai Korgak

A freakish-looking fish hauled recently from the chilly depths of northeastern Canada has been identified as a long-nosed chimaera.
The identity of the fish, which boasts a whip-like tail and an enlarged cone-shaped nose, remained a mystery for days after it was captured by Nunavut fishermen in the Hudson Strait.
That’s understandable because these denizens, although they exist in oceans around the world, inhabit depths of up to 6,000 feet and are rarely encountered.
Nigel Hussey, a researcher with the Ocean Tracking Network, solved the mystery and told Canada’s CBC News that it’s only the second time a long-nosed chimaera has been documented in the region between Canada and Greenland.
“Potentially, if we fish deeper, maybe between 1,000 and 2,000 meters, we could find that there’s actually quite a lot of them,” Hussey said. “We just don’t know.”