A Review of the Indo-Pacific Members of the Deep-Water Chaunacid Anglerfish Genus Bathychaunax, with the Description of a New Species from the Eastern Indian Ocean (Pisces: Lophiiformes)

Twenty-one chaunacid specimens collected by Soviet vessels in the eastern Indian Ocean represent the first Indo-Pacific records of the recently described genus Bathychaunax. Eleven of the specimens are similar to the other nominal Bathychaunax species, B. coloratus (Garman) of the eastern Pacific, and B. roseus (Barbour) of the western Atlantic, and are tentatively assigned to B. coloratus, previously known only from the type. The remaining 10 specimens are quite distinctive in having a very long tail and in being the only chaunacids with a black buccal cavity. These specimens are compared with all known Bathychaunax specimens and are herein described as a new species.