Rare albino ratfish has eerie, sil...(by far than any other fish Reum says. In...)

"I've seen tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of ratfish in my career, and have not seen a completely albino one before," says Wayne Palsson, a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist who studies groundfish populations in Puget Sound. "I've seen lightly colored or partially albino ratfish but never completely albino." Palsson says the only other pure albino marine organism of any kind that he's seen in Puget Sound was a sea cucumber collected near UW's Friday Harbor Laboratories in the '90s.

Ratfish are probably so-called because they have tails that are exceptionally long and streamer-like. To move through the water they flap large, wing-like pectoral fins on their sides

There are 33 species around the world, but only one is found in Puget Sound, the white-spotted ratfish. They can grow as long as 3 feet. Like sharks and rays, ratfish have skeletons composed of cartilage instead of bone.

After the albino ratfish was caught the researchers attempted to keep her alive in a bucket of water but, in spite of boards placed over the top, she managed to flip out of the bucket onto the deck during the night. She is now preserved and part of the UW Fish Collection, which has 82 other ratfish specimens, ranging from eggs to full-grown adults. The collection, which focuses on North Pacific and Bering Sea fishes, is needed by researchers on and off campus to identify species and to understand fish biology and conservation.

Pietsch says ratfish seek meals of sea-bottom worms, crabs and clams by burrowing their snub snouts into the mud and using special sensors in their heads to detect the faint electrical signals given off whenever animals use their muscles.

Powerful jaws and grinding teeth able to crack the shells
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