New species: Weird creatures of the water

This weekly feature has been anything but. We will just have to see what fate it meets as Red Squirrel News Service grows.

Tricky choice this time around: a haul of bizarre sea creatures off Antarctica should end up yielding plenty of new species, but none have been formally described yet; and an "odd, flat-faced fish" found in Indonesia looks sure to be declared a new species.

The Antarctic haul brought creatures to the light of day that range from cute to gross to terrifying to surreal.

"Weird-fish expert" Ted Pietsch will call the odd Indonesian anglerfish the "Maluku frogfish" if it's a new species - and if he publishes it first. Like other anglerfish, it can use it's fins like feet, and makes its own lures for prey. The specimen that's been observed is about four inches, and is symmetrically, "psychedelically" striped.

What's interesting is its flat face. "We've never seen a fish with remotely this kind of face," said one of its discoverers. It could have humanlike binocular vision, which, for fish, "is extremely rare."