The known range of the species lies within the area of the Gulf of Mexico which was affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

[2] Although numbers are not precisely known, in the initial trawl which led to their discovery out of around 100,000 fish only three were pancake batfish.

[3] Hsuan-Ching Ho, of the Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan (now in National Museum of Marine Biology & Aquarium, Taiwan), discovered the Louisiana pancake batfish when he was visiting colleagues in the American Museum of Natural History, New York.

They noted that the specimens of the pancake batfish in the collection of the museum were actually three species, not a single one as previously thought.

He joined with John Sparks and Prosanta Chakrabarty, of the American Museum of Natural History to write the description that appeared in Journal of Fish Biology.