Freaky fish caught in Northern Territory is called a worm goby, rarely seen by people

Updated

A slimy, alien-like, mud-dwelling fish with no eyes and "glasslike" teeth has been caught near Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory.

Key points: An angler has described her horror when she pulled up a mysterious fish from the muddy depths of a NT river

A scientist from the NT museum has identified the find as a rarely seen worm goby

The unusual fish is the focus of a citizen science project, which asks fishers to report sightings of the animal to the Museum and Art Gallery NT

Angler Tee Hokin described the moment the fish was brought up to the boat as something straight out of the 1979 classic horror film Alien.

"Honestly the first thing I thought about was the Alien movie with Sigourney Weaver and that thing that comes out of people's stomach, that's exactly what I thought, and that's what they describe it as when you look it up on the internet," Ms Hokin said.

"It's like purpley-brown, it had a really weird head, but the body was like an eel and it didn't even move or wriggle; it was like stunned, like stealth mode.

"It has really sharp teeth, it could bite, no worries, you would not be willing to put your finger near it.

"You'd probably s*** your pants if it was bigger.

"I was like what the hell is that?!"

'Never seen anything like it'

Ms Hokin and a group of anglers were at the Shady Camp fishing area on the Mary River earlier this month.

She said initially when the fish — which was only around 15 centimetres long — got hooked, they thought it was a snag and had to stop the boat to get it.

"It's got this little suction cap under its gut, like it was stuck, it was proper stuck on the bottom, so we had to stop the boat and reverse back to go get it," she said.

To get it off the lure and release it back into the water, they had to wrangle the fish using pliers.

"It was the only way to get it off … you couldn't shake it, you couldn't anything, it was proper like, just jagged," she said.

"It was cool. Never in my life have I seen it before, none of us had ever seen it before."

Not an alien, just a 'worm goby'

Dr Michael Hammer, a curator of fishes from the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT), said the fish appeared to be a worm goby, from the genus Taenioides.

"They have no eyes and live their life under the mud and are pretty rarely seen by people," he said.

"They are very interesting animals."

He said it was difficult to tell exactly what species it was without doing X-rays, and there was also a chance it could be a totally new species.

Dr Hammer said the worm goby was native to the NT and was rarely dangerous.

"They still have very glass-like, small little teeth so a few people have said when they've caught them [that] they get a bite from them, but it's not dangerous," he said.

"Although they do grow up to 50cm in length, so once they are that big they could give you a bit of a bite."

Dr Hammer said MAGNT was running a citizen science project to try and find out more about the elusive worm goby, and was asking people to get in touch if they ever came across them.

"Sometimes the hook punctures vital organs and so they might not live, so if that's the case and you can't release them, put them on ice and bring them to the museum and we'll be very happy to look at them and find out what species it is," he said.

"Otherwise take lots of photos and location details so we can start to build up a bigger picture of the habitat they're in."

Topics: fish, fishing-aquaculture, animals-and-nature, animals, darwin-0800, jabiru-0886

First posted