SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Researchers who discovered what may be an entirely brand new species of fish in Great Slave Lake last year have found piles more and in a different location after receiving a tip from a Dene fisherman.

Paul Vecsei holds up the first specimen found of the alleged new species of cisco, half-jokingly called Coregonus googelii, due to its "googly eyes." This photo was taken on July 16, 2008, moments after being plucked from a net on Yellowknife Bay. - Photo courtesy of Andrew Muir/Golder Associates

Last summer, biologists with the environmental consulting firm Golder Associates began finding a variety of cisco unlike any other discovered before. Its eyes were larger and more closely spaced together than found in other species of ciscoes, of which there are many different kinds reported in Canada.

To date, the only truly verified species of cisco in Great Slave Lake is the lake cisco – the sort that are commonly netted during their fall run up the Yellowknife River.

Due to its enormous eyes, Golder biologist Paul Vecsei dubbed the odd fish Coregonus googelii, or the "googly-eyed cisco."

His team has gone out on numerous outings to gather samples of googelii since the initial discovery but it wasn't until they collaborated with members of the Yellowknives Dene last week, particularly Peter Sangris, that they started netting big loads of them.

"Peter Sangris, an elder and experienced fisherman on the lake, he gave us a location he thought would be good for ciscoes," said Vecsei.

"Low and behold, the area that he ended up suggesting was six times as productive as what I thought was the holy grail of diversity, the Sub Islands," said Vecsei.

Vecsei won't say specifically where the latest batch of the 20 to 30 centimetre-long fish – about 30 of them – were found, but it is somewhat south of the Sub Islands – the site of the initial discovery – on the outer edge of Yellowknife Bay. The Sub Islands are about 8.5 km south of Yellowknife.

Vecsei recalls the first time a googly-eye was pulled from a net last July.

At the time, he was trying to verify whether another type of cisco, the shortjaw cisco, was an inhabitant of Great Slave Lake.

"Suddenly something weird came up and I right away took it out of the net and said, 'take a photo,' because I knew it was something different," said Vecsei.

He describes the Sub Islands as the "Galapagos" of cisco evolution. The Galapagos Islands of the South Pacific provided the inspiration for Charles Darwin's theory of evolution as the islands are host to a vast number of animals that are found nowhere else in the world after evolving in isolation from mainland South America.

"The Sub Islands may represent a case of rapid speciation like the Galapagos fishes, where in different islands with different food sources, they have adapted to feed on those different items," said Vecsei.

At first glance, Vecsei thought the strange fish could be a blackfin cisco – a rare species found in the Great Lakes region. But, due to its dark fins, he soon realized some glaring attributes that separated it not only from the blackfin, but from all other ciscoes as well.

"At the time I didn't dare consider we'd discovered something new," said Vecsei, but the more they looked at the fish, the more differences they found.

The waters around the Sub Islands, and the newer googelii site, reach depths of more than 100 feet. Vecsei's Golder colleague Andrew Muir said there are four different levels in the water column around the islands where the size of the plankton the ciscoes eat differ. This may account for the differences found in the googly-eyed cisco, which the two biologists believe live deeper than other ciscoes and eat larger plankton.

The obvious difference were in its eyes. Normally, a cisco's eyes are at mid-level or lower on the side of the head. This cisco's eyes were up near the top, and very close together.

"The eyes were enormous and set very close together on the head, and the mouth is very upward facing," said Vecsei.

"It looks like this is a fish that feeds in the water column but uses its sight and its forward vision abilities to pick out food items more selectively."

Clues are also found in the fish's teeth and gill-rakers – little comb-like structures that filter food particles from water.

"The ciscoes differ from one another in terms of the gill-raker counts, as well as the size and shape of the gill-rakers," said Vecsei.

"It's usually the written-in-stone sort of identification tool in cisco taxonomy."

The blackfin cisco has among the highest number and longest gill-rakers found in ciscoes. The googelii has fewer rakers which are "short and stubby."

This further adds evidence that the fish may dwell in deeper waters, as deep water fish eat bigger food and consequently have fewer rakers and shorter ones compared to more upper water fish which need many fine rakers to catch the smaller food particles, said Vecsei.

Then came another big discovery.

"In studying the bones, things looked immediately different," said Vecsei.

The bone on the roof of the fish's mouth, which on other ciscoes is see-through and smooth, is lined with claw-like teeth on the googly-eye.

"In the whitefishes (which are also a type of cisco), having teeth is the primitive condition," said Vecsei.

"This googly-eye could represent a relic form or species of cisco that was once likely widespread and now for some reason has hung onto a precarious existence in this outer Yellowknife Bay Sub Islands area," said Vecsei.

Muir, said help from the Yellowknives with their project proved invaluable.

"The years that these people have lived on the land and the experience that these people have – what we know so far about the waters and the land pales in comparison," said Muir.

"This whole collaboration with the Yellowknives Dene adds a whole new dimension to this and that's maybe (another) reason that this is important. We're building on that relationship between western science and traditional knowledge and perhaps offer a way to integrate this knowledge into not just management but into understanding these ciscoes and protecting some of the rare kinds."

Right now, Vecsei and Muir have around 50 googelii that are being studied in almost every way possible, as well as another 900 ciscoes of different varieties to which they can compare.

Studies include bone structure, physical and physiological structure, and eating habits. The team hopes to secure funding for a genetics study.

Right now the research is being funded through several federal government departments, including Indian and Northern Affairs Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Vecsei and Muir consider this research to be very important.

"One can argue that this Yellowknife Bay example is the last frontier of exploratory ichthyology (the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish)," said Vecsei.

As well, Muir said understanding cisco species is important because they are a link between smaller food chains and the larger ones, meaning that the ciscoes eat plankton and larger fish, like pike, eat the cisco.

As far as the edibility of this new cisco goes, this may be the last test to complete, and only after the googly-eye is accepted as a new species by the international community of biologists.

"Believe me, it takes great restraint not to eat them because we are both big fish eaters," said Muir.

Vecsei said they are far "too precious" to consume right now.

"I've tasted other ciscoes. They are, indeed, delicious, but we won't be having a googelii cook-off in the near future," said Vecsei.

The team are still collecting samples and still studying, as they want to build enough of a portfolio of proof and facts to put all questions to rest on whether or not the googelii is indeed a new discovery of fish.