Strange Fish Puzzles Experts at Museum of Comparative Zoology--Is Like Sunfish but Probably One of Bramidae

Fish experts at the Museum of Comparative Zoology are still, puzzled over the strange fish which they have just received. It was caught off Brown's bank, 60 miles southwest of Nova Scotia by fishermen on the schooner Wanderer, and because it could not be identified it was packed in ice and shipped to Dr. Thomas Barbour '06, Director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology.

"It looks something like a sunfish, but in all probability it belongs to the family Bramidae, genus Brama," said one of Dr. Barbour's assistants. "Little is known of the fish, only two that resemble it in any way at all have been found on the whole Atlantic coast.

"It is too rare to give it a common name, but it can be described as a large grey-black fish that resembles the common sunfish, and it has large eyes, large fins, is two and a half feet long, and weighs 20 pounds."

In their endeavor to locate the fish's family, records of all the fish caught from the time that America was first settled until the present were consulted, but with little result. A fish that somewhat resembles the one now in the museum was caught off the coast of Cuba several years ago, and another was found off the coast of California.

"There are three possibilities concerning the unknown fish's identity," Dr. Barbour said. "It may be a new species altogether, or it may be a member of the 'Brama Longinpennis' or 'Brama Agassizii' species."