Now and again, marine scientists plumbing the dark depths of the sea pull out a new fish species that is just out-and-out ugly.
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The spooky tackle is believed to have evolved from a dorsal fin. Looking at the fish, one quickly understands how anglerfishes get their common name. Far be it for us to try to top that description, but here we go anyway: It looks like a turkey leg that decided to bite you back after watching Mad Max: Fury Road and your own nightmares for inspiration.
No plants grow there, and the survival of creatures that call it home depends on waste called marine snow that sinks down to them.
The appendage angling from the fish’s head serves them well in the pitch-black darkness of the deep waters, where nothing except the bioluminescence of each deep water creatures provides a momentary flicker of light. In fact they found three samples, all females, somewhere between 3,300 and 4,900 feet. The competition for food is also never ending, thus, other fishes adopted and developed unique ways of catching their prey.
As the saying goes “There’s plenty of fish in the sea”, well a Nova Southeastern University researcher recently discovered one that has never been seen before. The little fish, whose bodies ranged in length from 1.2 to 3.7 inches (30 to 95 millimeters), live under extreme conditions: No sunlight penetrates their deep habitats where they endure vast pressures of more than 2,200 pounds (1 ton) per square inch.
Anglerfish are spectacular, dangerously-looking abyssal fish. Bioluminescent creatures, like the ceratioid anglerfish, usually serve as the only source of light.
“As a researcher, the one thing I know is that there’s so much more we can learn about our oceans”, co-author Tracey Sutton of Nova Southeastern University said in a press release.
The males in this group also often lack any lure and some fuse themselves to the female, living off of nutrients from her bloodstream, providing sperm to fertilize her eggs in return.
The parasitic relationship is how many anglerfish reproduce.
Once attached, the male effectively decomposes, leaving only remnants of himself to be used as an attached reproductive organ. When the time is right, the female can use the sacrificial fish to reproduce.
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Male ceratioid anglerfish latch onto females using toothlike denticles while upside down.
