Pancake Batfish

The pancake batfish has a flattened head and body which are widened into a rounded disc, with a moderately long tail. The mouth is very small, as is the illicial cavity on the snout which is covered by puffy, membranous folds. The esca is a single bulb. The pupils are covered. There is a buckler at the angle of the preoperculum which is not larger than the nearby bucklers. The openings of the gills are small and they are located to the rear of the upper base of the pectoral fins. The gill rakers are similar to small teeth set on short stalks. They have small dorsal and anal fins which are located to the rear of the body. The bases of the pectoral fins have a wide attachment to the body and the pelvic fins are not reduced in size. The lateral line is complete and there are a pair of lateral line organs on the caudal peduncle behind the anus. There are no tubercles along the lateral line. The scales are large, irregular, pitted tubercles; with few, sparse tubercles on the caudal peduncle while the tubercles on the upper body are relatively small and sharp, although they are only rarely present over the eye. There is a triangle of 3 tubercles on the side of each shoulder to the rear of the eye with the innermost tubercle being small and blunt, The adults are scaleless on the underside of the body and large areas of the upperside are also without scales. …

The pancake batfish is found in the western Atlantic Ocean where it has been recorded from Cape Hatteras in North Carolina southwards along southeastern coast of the United States to the northwestern Bahamas. In the Gulf of Mexico it has been recorded from the Florida Keys north to Louisiana, as well as from Tabasco, Mexico. Records from farther south need verification. This demersal fish is found at depths between 5 and 422 m (16 and 1,385 ft), typically between 50 and 150 m (160 and 490 ft), on soft sediments.

The pancake batfish belongs to the genus Halieutichthys which combines the genus name Halieutaea, for the similarity of these fishes to the species in that genus, and ichthys, the Greek word for "fish". The specific name, aculeatus, means "spined" or "sharply pointed", an allusion to the prickly back and edge of the disc.