Shanghai Ocean University announced on the 7th that Chen Jiajie, a PhD student of the 2022 class at the university and assistant researcher at the East China Sea Fisheries Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, has discovered a new fish species in the family Ophidiidae, naming it Neobythites nanhaiensis (South China Sea New Cusk-eel). The research results have been published in the international animal taxonomy journal Zookeys.
Chen Jiajie obtained this new species while collecting fish specimens from the South China Sea for his doctoral dissertation research, and found that its midlateral body had a pair (occasionally three) of distinct black eyespots, its body color was light yellow to pale brown, and all fins lacked markings or dark edges. Additionally, it exhibited a stable set of taxonomic differences in features such as number of fin rays and vertebral counts.
According to Chen Jiajie, the new species shows differences from existing commonly seen deep-sea cusk-eel species of the genus Neobythites, and does not match the morphological features or distribution records of any valid species. After consulting with related professors in Japan, they also believed it was highly likely to be an unrecorded species. The research team adopted an integrative taxonomy approach, using external morphology and other diverse data sources for phylogenetic analysis, all of which consistently supported the validity of the South China Sea New Cusk-eel as an independent species.