My, What a Big Head You Have
Posted by: Ken Gerhard on February 1st, 2014
It may be tiny, but a new species of fish has been discovered in the United States… once again illustrating that there are many life forms around us that have not been catalogued.
New species of ugly, big-headed fish found in Idaho and Montana
USFS, Photos provide a top, side and bottom view of the male cedar sculpin, a newly described fish species found in mountain rivers.
A tiny fish characterized by a disproportionately large head and previously unknown to scientists has been found in mountain rivers of Idaho and Montana, in what biologists said on Thursday marked a rare discovery.
The new aquatic species is a type of freshwater sculpin, a class of fish that dwell at the bottom of cold, swift-flowing streams throughout North America and are known for their oversized head and shoulder structure.
“The discovery of a new fish is something I never thought would happen in my career, because it’s very rare in the United States,” said Michael Young, co-author of a scientific description of the find that has been published in the latest edition of the peer-reviewed journal Zootaxa.
About Ken Gerhard
Ken has investigated reports of mysterious beasts around the world including Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, the Chupacabra, giant winged creatures and even werewolves. In addition to appearing in three episodes of the television series Monster Quest (History Channel), Ken is featured in the History Channel special The Real Wolfman, as well as Legend Hunters (Travel Channel/A&E), Paranatural (National Geographic), Ultimate Encounters (truTV) and William Shatner's Weird or What? (History Television). His credits include multiple appearances on Coast to Coast AM, major news broadcasts and Ireland’s Newstalk radio, as well as being featured in major books and in articles by the Associated Press, Houston Chronicle and Tampa Tribune. Ken is author of the books Big Bird: Modern Sightings of Flying Monsters and A Menagerie of Mysterious Beasts: Encounters with Cryptid Creatures, as well as the co-author of Monsters of Texas (with Nick Redfern) and has contributed to trade publications including Fate Magazine, Animals and Men, The Journal of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club and Bigfoot Times. He currently lectures and exhibits at events across America. Born on Friday the 13th of October, 1967 (exactly one week before the famous Patterson Bigfoot film was shot), Ken has traveled to twenty-six different countries on six continents and most of the United States. An avid adventurer, he has camped along the Amazon, explored the Galapagos, hiked the Australian Outback and has visited many ancient and mysterious sites, from Machu Pichu to Stonehenge.
This is (amazingly) routine.
I saw the photo and said: um, OK, looks like a sculpin. I page down, bam, sculpin.
Now.
Lists – authoritative lists – of the fish in these streams have been coming out for decades.
And they missed an, um, sculpin. Which is something that sits on the bottom, just waiting to be seen.
“The discovery of a new fish is something I thought would never happen in my career.” Um. OK.
Right. I’m not trusting any scientist to tell us we have an exhaustive catalog of anything either.
At 4 or 5 inches, it’s not really that tiny- much larger, in fact, than a lot of freshwater fishes in North America. Cool!
DWA– the very same thing happened to me…
“Hmmm…looks like a sculpin…YEP, sure enough”
I don’t think the has much bearing on sasquatch or other cryptids, as the photos aren’t even blurry…..
PoeticsOfBigfoot: I agree, and wonder why someone – be it naturalist or ichthyologist – would consider a fish the size of a human hand, roughly, be considered “tiny”.
Goodfoot: easy. Anybody reading about this find and going….omg, BIGFOOT MIGHT BE REAL AFTER ALL….would want, badly badly WANT, to come up with some conceivable reason to Get Back In That Ignorance Is Bliss Comfort Zone.
Just speckalatin’. [wink]