A new and previously unrecorded species of fish has been identified in water off the coast of Ireland.
Scientists say the Microichthys Grandis managed to go undetected for years because the fish are small enough to slip through the nets used by commercial fishermen.
They are typically just 5.4cm in length.
The area of the Atlantic Ocean though - Porcupine Bank - is heavily fished for mora, dogfish and other species.
Scientists are curious about Microichthys Grandis - otherwise translated to "big little fish" - because they know it has deepwater cardinalfish relatives in the Atlantic and Mediterranean waters.
The fish was discovered by professors conducting an annual survey to assess stocks of blue whiting. They believe the species is similar to fish from Sicily, than to the other Atlantic creatures from the Azores.
The wider Microichthys species is a genus of very small deepwater fish, often found in the Aegean Sea and around the Azores.
Last month, a fisherman left Instagram users shocked after sharing a picture of a creature from the deep that was compared to a character from a Tim Burton movie.
Roman Fedortsov, a deep-sea fisherman working on a trawler in Murmansk in the northwest part of Russia, has devoted his life to searching for creatures unknown.
He spends months of his life at sea, much to the delight of his 650,000 followers on Instagram (@rfedortsov_official_account), where he often shares snaps of frightening looking creatures from the depths he’s found.
His latest catch has left fans stunned – with it looking “like a drawing” and even being compared to a creature from a Tim Burton flick.
