A fish that’s known to dwell at 600-1,200 feet in depth on the ocean floor gave Texas park rangers pause for thought after it washed up on Padre Island National Seashore last week.
Edie Bresler, a photographer who was scanning the beach near Corpus Christi last week, spotted the rare find when he was searching for treasure of another sort to capture with his lens. Unsure as to what type of creature he was looking, Bresler took photos of the bumpy-skinned, wide-mouthed fish. “I have been beach combing all my life so to come across something strange like this was totally exciting. It got even better when I took the photographs to the park rangers and they were equally baffled,” he said in a recent Facebook post.
Photo: Facebook/Padre Island National Seashore
He then forwarded his pictures of the species to Padre Island National Seashore officials, who compared its images to that of fish from a variety of science books. They resolved that it was a thick-tailed batfish. The park posted two of Bresler’s pictures in a “Creature Feature” on Facebook, noting,”Batfish use their pectoral, or side-fins, as ‘legs’ to ‘crawl’ on the seafloor to feed on worms, and small crustaceans and fish. They live their lives in complete darkness, where large eyes probably come in handy to avoid lanternfish or other possible predators.” Although a unique find, it was unfortunately too late to save the fish that Bresler had come across, but in the meantime, it gave rangers the chance to share with possible park goers a rare photo of the types of species that can be found off the Texas coast.