The pancake batfish (''Halieutichthys aculeatus'') belongs to the batfish family

Ogcocephalidae Ogcocephalidae is a family of anglerfish specifically adapted for a benthic lifestyle of crawling about on the seafloor. Ogcocephalid anglerfish are sometimes referred to as batfishes,Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

, northern

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...

to northern

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

. They inhabit a subtropical, sandy,

reef A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral or similar relatively stable material, lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic processes— deposition of sand, wave erosion planing down rock out ...

-associated, and 45–820 m deep environment. They live on the bottom of the ocean, covered in sand. The fish are flat, resembling pancakes with a maximum size of ca. 10 cm. They feed on small snails, clams, crustaceans, scallops, worms, and occasionally on small fishes. Their eggs and larvae are

pelagic The pelagic zone consists of the water column of the open ocean, and can be further divided into regions by depth (as illustrated on the right). The word ''pelagic'' is derived . The pelagic zone can be thought of as an imaginary cylinder or wa ...

and develop upon reaching the bottom. Two new species of ''Halieutichthys'' batfish were discovered in the

in 2010, in the region directly affected by the

Deepwater Horizon oil spill The ''Deepwater Horizon'' oil spill (also referred to as the "BP oil spill") was an industrial disaster that began on 20 April 2010 off of the coast of the United States in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect, considered ...

. The two species were named '' Halieutichthys intermedius'' and '' Halieutichthys bispinosus''.

References

External links

*
Halieutichthys intermedius, the Louisiana pancake batfish. (with photo)
Ogcocephalidae Fish of the Atlantic Ocean Fish described in 1818 {{Lophiiformes-stub