Craig Vester submitted the winning answer to this BRTU Puzzler. Craig was correct when he wrote "They’re Icefish and are usually found in the frigid waters of Antarctica, hence their name. This photo is from the Weddell Sea."

As reported in The Guardian in a story based on a research article, this previously unknown massive colony of icefish (Neopagetopsis ionah) was discovered by accident during a bathymetric study to map the seafloor of the Weddell Sea for upwellings. Current plans are to continue mapping the colony in an effort to determine how this huge source of food might influence seal populations and other aspects of the aquatic ecosystem.

The enormous colony of breeding pairs of notothenioid fish that spanned about 150 miles - "about 1/3 the size of London." There were an estimated 60 million nests which the researchers estimated contained 60,000 tonnes of fish! The water temperatures are right at freezing, and the adults are the only vertebrates known not have hemoglobin in their blood.

The Weddell Sea is part of the Southern Ocean and is pretty much due south of Patagonia. It is probably best known from the story of the British adventurer Ernest Shackleton whose ship the Endurance got trapped in 1914 in the ice in the Weddell Sea disrupting Shackleton's plan to reach the South Pole. After the Endurance got trapped Shackleton managed to save all of his crew in an almost unimaginable series of survival feats including a long frigid 650 mile trip to South Georgia Island in a lifeboat. If you have never read the book Endurance, it is truly impossible to put down!

If you have a cool fishing or conservation related photo, consider submitting it to BRTU Puzzlemaster Marshall Bloom for the BRTU Puzzler. We prefer photos of actual fish in the water rather than in the hand, but won't decline any.