One of the scariest things to do in the ocean is swim with anglerfish. Adding its ability to lure its prey with glowing head lanterns and its razor-sharp teeth makes the anglerfish the stuff of nightmares.
A fish that was almost perfectly spherical washed up on a beach in Greenland and was taken to a zoologist. Ted Pietsch wrote that the first fish known to science was the footballfish.
There are about 170 known species in 12 families of deep-sea anglerfish, and there is a huge diversity within those families, according to a professor of biology.
Some of the wild forms of anglerfish include the sea devil, wolf trap, and pugnacious dreamer. Some are squat and round, others are flat and huge-snouted, and others are covered in whiskery. These fish are found all over the world, but they are very elusive and live below the surface for a long time. Each new species is more strange than the last.
Any deep-sea anglerfish is a small ocean-dwelling creature and its worst nightmare.
The glowing lure they use to attract fish and crustaceans is called an anglerfish. The fearsome hunters are hidden in the depths of the ocean. Gerringer said they are ambush predators, floating and waiting in the dark until prey comes near. They use their built-in fishing rod to lure in the unlucky animal, hiding and revealing their lure until they are close enough to be sucked up.
The feeding strategy explains why many are blobby. The blobfish would like a word, but National Geographic called the anglerfish the ugliest animal on the planet.
In the deep ocean, there are very few meals to eat. Pietsch wrote that most of the anglerfish stomachs that have been examined are empty. When an anglerfish finds a meal, they make it last. If a meal can fit in the mouth of a fish, it can fit in the body. Many anglerfish can double their size.
She told Live Science that they end up with a bubble belly. It's squishy if you touch the stomachs.
Don't worry about these deep-sea horrors, they're too small to hurt a human. An adult Ceratias holboelli is 6 inches (16 centimeters) long and can grow up to three or four feet (0.9 to 1.2 m) long.
The fish's lure glows in the deep ocean at least half a mile below the surface. The lure, also called an "esca", has a pores on it's end that is designed to be a home for thesebacteria, many of which can't live anywhere else, and many of which are unique to that species of anglerfish.
Where do the glowingbacteria come from? The fish are born deep in the ocean and are 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465. They don't grow an esca until later in life, so they have nowhere to nurture their colonies from birth.
Pietsch wrote in his book that it is unlikely that the fish pick up their glowing buddies from their environment.
Do they live on the fish's skin? A study in the journal eLife suggested that adult anglerfish could be to blame for the emergence of the disease.
The diverse anglerfish don't stop at a single lure. Phyllorhinichthys balkini has light guides that protrude from their bodies. Caruncles are glowing spots on the backs of others. Thaumatichthys members have lures on the roofs of their mouths.
The fish has an incentive to keep its prey. Most animals sport teeth that are firmly attached to their jaws, with anglerfish being a notable exception, according to Karly Cohen, a PhD candidate studying the biomechanics of fish teeth at the University of Washington. Cohen told Live Science that some of the teeth could be like a spike guard in a parking garage.
Cohen uses a technique called histology to understand anglerfish teeth. She slices the block into tiny pieces. She and her colleagues can stain and identify specific tissues to determine how those teeth developed.
Cohen can get a better look at the fish with a newer technique. Cohen sliced the entire fish into sections and then reassembled them in a way that could be viewed from any angle.
Cohen said that fish put teeth everywhere, and often in places that are hard to see while just looking at a specimen. Cohen and her colleagues can make better models of these elusive animals with a 3D rendering of a tiny fish.
There are many species of deep-sea anglerfish that have weird reproduction strategies. We don't mean that males are parasites metaphorically.
Gerringer said that in many deep-sea anglerfish species, the males are 10 times smaller than females and they have no function other than to reproduce. They use scent organs to find females. When they find one, they bite into her, according to Cohen. Cohen is researching if these teeth are real teeth or a type of Proto-Tooth called odontodes. They release an enzyme that causes the skin of their mouth to be dissolved. The males become dependent on the female for sustenance, their circulatory systems are merged so that they are sharing the same blood, and the males become a living pair of testicles.
Since there's a low chance that you'll run into each other in the ocean, you want to be able to stick together. Gerringer said that they take this to the extreme.
The record is 12 males to one female when females have one male fused to them.
The males become a part of the female's body when they are fused. A research published in the journal Science in 2020 shows that anglerfish lack genes to produce most of the molecules that would attack foreign tissue. The lack of an immune system would likely kill a human, study co-author Dr. Thomas Boehm said in a press release.
Since anglerfish are a deep-sea predator, they are not really targeted, although some have been found in the stomachs of other deep-sea predators. You might think that the anglerfish population is safe.
Gerringer said that deep ocean communities are closely connected to the rest of the ocean. An opinion article published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences argued that deep-sea mining in search of rare earth minerals could endanger the ocean. According to Nature, the emerging technology could shoot the waste from the ocean up into the water column, where it could stay. According to a report in Science Daily, that habitat is home to tens of thousands of other species. That muck could cause a lot of problems for fish and the way light travels in the ocean.
Gerringer said that climate change is a threat. Less oxygen is making its way down to the depths because water isn't mixing from the surface as much as it used to. We don't know how humans might affect anglerfish, or even what their baselines are.
All the time, technology is improving. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute captured the first ever video of a black seadevil, and then brought it to the surface for a closer look, expecting that the fish wouldn't live long at sea level. The ability to bring live deepwater fish to the surface is evolving according to National Geographic. Someday, thanks to developments like these and the continued exploration of the deep ocean, we may know more about these strange creatures.
The Tree of Life contains information about the deep-sea anglerfish family. There are more facts about the ocean from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.
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