The Madagascar Ridge, in the southwestern Indian Ocean, is a remote, elevated area of seabed south of Madagascar. In 2016, my colleagues and I discovered a new cartilaginous fish species in its deep waters; a catshark that we named Bach’s catshark (Bythaelurus bachi) after German composer Johann Sebastian Bach. (In 2017 we discovered another new deep-water catshark that’s very similar to B. bachi but from the northwestern Indian Ocean off Somalia. We named it Bythaelurus vivaldii after another composer, Italian Antonio Vivaldi.)
Sharks, rays and skates are all examples of cartilaginous fish; their skeletons are primarily composed of cartilage, not bone.
Now we can add another new species from the Madagascar Ridge to our list of finds in African waters. We recently published a journal article describing the species, which we’ve named the Brown longnose skate (its scientific name, longirostris, means long, stiff snout – its most immediately visible defining feature). To date, both new species have only been found on the southern end of the Madagascar Ridge, and have not been recorded anywhere else in the world.
