EVANSTON, Ill. – Ecologists from Northwestern University announced today that a “totally gross looking” new fish has been discovered in the ocean deep. While the discovery of a fish at such depths is unusual, the team theorizes that it was “presumably relegated to the shadowy depths by other, less hideous, fish.”
“This is a spectacular scientific discovery that has substantially furthered our understanding of how gross-looking fish can be,” said lead researcher John T. Lauder.
“Most fish are already pretty revolting,” he added. “But this one makes even the gulf toadfish look like the belle of the ball.”
Another researcher, Fred MacIver, took measurements and photographs of the species, which had striking colors and body patterns. He explained that the unique characteristics of this fish made the process more difficult than usual.
“I didn’t know where to start on this one,” MacIver said. “Just figuring out which side was up took six weeks. I thought once I had that down, the rest would start to fall into place, but this thing has all the wrong parts in all the wrong places, and our research wasn’t helped by the sheer disgust you feel when you look at this fish. I mean, this dumb-shit fish is so ugly, I had to skip lunch just so I wouldn’t toss my cookies all over the lab.”
“This fish really puts the ‘ick’ in ‘ichthyologist.'”
“There’s much more biodiversity in the deep ocean than we previously thought,” Lauder said. “But scuzzy little creeps like this make you wonder if it’d be better to just nuke the whole ocean floor and start over.”
The research team’s work will appear in greater depth in the next issue of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists journal.
