As a biologist , it ’s an occupational hazard , though admittedly quite a fun one , to arrive across new species in your work and have to name them , especially if you are surveying the curiosity of the Alaskan trench .

Researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ( NOAA ) have discovered more than a twelve newfangled types of snailfish while surveying commercially crucial fish species , like cod , in the deep waters off Alaska .

Jay Orr and his colleague from the Alaska Fisheries Science Center , the inquiry sleeve of NOAA ’s National Marine Fisheries Service , were doing quotidian sketch using trawler nets along the sea floor in the Aleutian Trench , 7,800 meters ( 25,600 feet ) deep , when they let out the surprising variety of the small , piano - corporate fish .

" I sort of knew what I was count for and what was know out there , " Orr tell theAssociated Press . " The first ones that come up , I saw them right away and say , ' We do n’t know what these are . These have n’t been name . ' "

Having previously used larger , more open nets , the researcher realized they could be lack out on some interesting finds deeper down on the sea flooring and switched to a lucre just 0.6 to 0.9 meters ( 2 to 3 feet ) widely .

Snailfish are soft - corporate , scaleless fish that are distinctive for the sucking disc on their belly that serve them to stick to rocks . They became   famous in 2014 when they were get wind swimming at 8,200 meters ( 27,000 feet ) deep in the Mariana Trench , make them thedeepest - dwelling vertebratein the humans .

Orr discovered 14 novel types of the Pisces with   characteristics not seen before , including a variety that did n’t have a sucking record , one that had a projecting modest jaw , and even a type that had hardened bone in its head – foreign for a fish lie with for its gelatinous appearance similar to a pollywog .

He even got to have some sport with name the unexampled species . After spotting a red , sinister , and snowy diversity with a bulbous nozzle , which struck Orr as comedic , he named itCareproctus comusafter Comus , the Hellenic god of clowning . Who says scientists do n’t know how to have fun with their work ?