Bathytyphlops Nybelin, 1957
Snout broad, rounded, depressed. Eyes vestigial, covered by skin and scales in large specimens. Jaws very long. Teeth minute, very numerous, and closely set in shagreen-like bands along both jaws. Gillrakers, except for the single element at the angle, reduced to low spinulose knobs or plaques; raker at the angle rather elongate, especially in small individuals. Dorsal and lateral areas of head completely scaled. Scale pockets distinct and of characteristic diamond shape. Ventral fins inserted only slightly in advance of dorsal fin. Caudal fin always with 19 principal finrays. Adipose fin absent. Head length 21-23% SL. Pseudobranch absent. Pyloric caeca absent.
Adults benthic on the continental slope and rise and the abyss (850-4,200 m). Rare and probably solitary fishes. Genus probably circumglobal: adults known from eastern and western Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and the western Indian Ocean; larva reported from surface (night) and midwater collections in the Gulf of Mexico (Berry and Robins, 1967), Indian and Pacific Oceans (Okiyama, 1972; Parin and Belyanina, 1972). Feeding on benthopelagic mysids and copepods (Marshall and Merrett, 1977; Merrett, 1979). Synchronously hermaphroditic (Nielsen, 1966). Eggs in mature adult number c. 6,000. Larva is 'Macristiella' (Okiyama, 1972). No commercial importance.
Species 2; in Clofnam area 1.
Recent revisions: Sulak (1974), Merrett (1980).
Species of this genus in the program:
Bathytyphlops sewelli