''Bajacalifornia'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

of slickheads. It was described in 1925 by Charles Haskins Townsend and John Treadwell Nichols on the basis of ''Bajacalifornia burragei''Deep sea fishes of the ''Albatross'' Lower California Expedition. Bulletin of the AMNH ; v. 52, article 1 which was discovered in 1911 during the deep sea expedition of the research vessel USS Albatross off the coast of Todos Santos Bay at the Baja California peninsula. In 1952 Ichthyologist

Albert Eide Parr Albert Eide Parr (15 August 1900 – 16 July 1991) was a Norwegian-born, American marine biologist, zoologist and oceanographer. He was the director of the American Museum of Natural History from 1942 to 1959. '' Parrosaurus missouriensis'', a sp ...

published a revision of this genus.

Species

There are currently seven recognized

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

in this genus: * '' Bajacalifornia aequatoris'' Miya & Markle, 1993 * '' Bajacalifornia arcylepis'' Markle & G. Krefft, 1985 (Network slickhead) * '' Bajacalifornia burragei'' C. H. Townsend &

Nichols Nichols may refer to: People *Nichols (surname) *Nichol, a surname Places Canada * Nichols Islands, Nunavut United States * Nichols, California, an unincorporated community * Nichols Canyon, Los Angeles, California * Nichols, Connecticut * Nich ...

, 1925 (Sharpchin slickhead) * '' Bajacalifornia calcarata'' ( M. C. W. Weber, 1913) (Brown slickhead) * '' Bajacalifornia erimoensis'' Amaoka & K. Abe, 1977 * '' Bajacalifornia megalops'' ( Lütken, 1898) (Bigeye smooth-head) * '' Bajacalifornia microstoma'' Sazonov, 1988

Description

The body is covered with small

cycloid scale A fish scale is a small rigid plate that grows out of the skin of a fish. The skin of most jawed fishes is covered with these protective scales, which can also provide effective camouflage through the use of reflection and colouration, as w ...

s. The ventral scales are well developed. The mouth is moderately wide but larger than in the genus '' Alepocephalus''. The lower jaw is strongly projected and ends in a pointed knob which is directed obliquely forwards. The jaw edges have a single row of small teeth. The

gill raker Gill rakers in fish are bony or cartilaginous processes that project from the branchial arch (gill arch) and are involved with suspension feeding tiny prey. They are not to be confused with the gill filaments that compose the fleshy part of the ...

openings are wide, the gill membranes are joined below. The short dorsal and anal fins are equal in length.

Distribution

The distribution area ranges from the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...

, the Indo-Pacific north to the

Sea of Japan The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, i ...

and eastwards to the

East Pacific Rise The East Pacific Rise is a mid-ocean rise (termed an oceanic rise and not a mid-ocean ridge due to its higher rate of spreading that results in less elevation increase and more regular terrain), a divergent tectonic plate boundary located alon ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q150439 Alepocephalidae Taxa named by Charles Henry Tyler Townsend Taxa named by John Treadwell Nichols Fish described in 1925