Taxonomy Time!

Hey everyone!

It’s Sidney back again with the DEEPEND crew on the R/V Point Sur. This is my third cruise with the DEEPEND team and my second Deep-Sea Benefits cruise. As our cruise is winding down to an end, I’m here to tell you a little about what my role has been this time around and share some of the cool catches of the cruise.

On the previous cruises I was mainly helping with data entry and mainting the lab as well as aiding the process of sampling. But, this time I was able to dip my toes into the world of fish taxonomy alongside Dr. Tracey Sutton. The two main families of fish that I have been identifying on this cruise are family Sternoptychidae (hatchetfishes) and Gonostomatidae (bristlemouths), both of which belong to the order Stomiiformes. Representatives for each family can be seen in Figure 1. The prominent species captured for the family Sternoptychidae has been Sternoptyx diaphana, while for the Gonostomatidae it has been Cyclothone pallida. 

Figure 1: Sternoptyx diaphana (top of tray) and members of the genus Cyclothone

Dr. Sutton has also been teaching my how to taxonomically identify members of the family Myctophidae and Stomiidae during processing. So, hopefully I will be able to identify even more species on our next cruise! 

Not only has this cruise been another amazing learning experience with the DEEPEND team, but we’ve also had some great catches and views during our time at sea (Figure 2). I’m already looking forward to setting sail again soon!

Figure 2: Net samples (top images); Sunrise on 8/26/2025 (bottom image)