August 15, 2021: Skate
Image courtesy of the NOAA Ocean Exploration, Gulf of Mexico 2018. Download larger version (jpg, 771 KB).
A view of a skate swimming just above the seafloor as seen from one of the cameras on remotely operated vehicle Deep Discoverer. The skate was seen on a dive that took place during the Gulf of Mexico 2018 expedition along an unnamed ridge in an area of the western Gulf of Mexico that had never before been explored using deep-sea submersibles. Closer examination of the skate revealed that it was a male (Fenestraja sp.) with an attached parasitic isopod. Watch a video of the skate.