Anglerfish: The Frightening Deep Sea Predators who Use a Shiny Lure to Attract Prey & Mate Latched on Each Other FOR EVER.

Today we introduce the subsection FrightFriday of our Amazing Creatures of the Deep Series. This is especially devoted to my friends who had believed my cute and weird animals would taste yummy. So I hope this will cut their appetite a bit :)

_{source: flickr}

Widely considered as one of the most fascinating ocean inhabitants, Anglerfish is a creature with remarkable features.

Their common name is Anglerfish, belonging to the order Lophiiformes. There are more than 322 different living species, distributed among 65 genera and 18 families. Most of them have specific common characteristics.

Their name derives from their characteristic predation mode, where an elongated dorsal spine (known as illicium) concludes to a light-producing organ (known as an esca) and is used in order to lure their prey.

All the species are carnivorous and come in different colors and sizes. Their length can vary from 20 cm from over one meter (!) with weights up to 45 kg!

There are some shallow-water anglerfish that actually remain in ambush, being camouflaged in order to capture their prey

Most of the anglerfish live in the seas of the Atlantic and Antarctic Oceans, in some cases up to 2000 meters depth.
Their most distinctive characteristic, their dorsal spine protruding above their mouths, is what is used for the anglerfish for luring their prey. Their prey sees the luminous flesh and as it believes to have found its own prey comes closer until it gets eaten by this ‘angry-looking’ fish.

How does their dorsal fin become luminous?

The end of their fishing-rod-like extension is actually inhabited by bacteria called bioluminescent, which make the structure to glow.
The enormous mouth of the anglerfish allows them to swallow prey up to twice as large as their body. They are able to distend their jaw and stomach, having flexible bones.

Impressed? No? Good, there is more to it...

source: Wikipedia

Remember these scary photos? These are only the .. female anglerfish

Some anglerfish, from Ceratiidae species that are also called ‘sea devils’ mate in a rather peculiar way.

These species live in the very deep and dark waters, known also as the ‘twilight zone’, thus it is extremely difficult to find food or a mate.

When scientists started to capture these types of fish, they realized that all of them were female. However all of them had this in common. One (or more) parasites attached to them.

As it turns out, this is called sexual parasitism and the procedure is performed as follows:

The male species, since their birth, are equipped with well-developed organs that detect scents in the water. Their main scope is to find their soulmate, actually they live for it, because if they do not find a girlfriend they literally will die.

The males significantly smaller than the females, and finding food for them can be a bit difficult.

So what they do is find a female (if they are lucky) and then they bit her in a soft spot at her belly. An enzyme is then released which causes the male’s mouth to actually fuse with the female’s body. And then the two, become one flesh.

As the male decomposes, he no longer has a digestive system, relying exclusively to the female to sustain him

Even though all his organs decompose, his testes remain fully functional. This way, whenever the female wishes to reproduce, she can use the sperm supply immediately.

The two-in-one flesh remain reproductively functional for as long as the female is alive, and have the unique ability to conduct multiple spawnings.

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Multiple males can be incorporated into a single individual female with up to eight males in some species, though some taxa appear to have a "one male per female" rule

To simplify all the above lets assume we would make a movie for their sex life…
source: Wired.com

Every single movie would go a little something like this: Boy meets girl, boy bites girl, boy’s mouth fuses to girl’s body, boy lives the rest of his life attached to girl sharing her blood and supplying her with sperm

Naturalist William Beebe put it nicely in 1938, writing, “But to be driven by impelling odor headlong upon a mate so gigantic, in such immense and forbidding darkness, and willfully eat a hole in her soft side, to feel the gradually increasing transfusion of her blood through one’s veins, to lose everything that marked one as other than a worm, to become a brainless, senseless thing that was a fish—this is sheer fiction, beyond all belief unless we have seen the proof of it.”

Believe it or not, there are many more interesting facts about this amazing creature, and I will consider making a second part if I receive encouragement : )

The ocean is filled with wonderful creatures that hold secrets that we may never know about. We have just begun to explore the immense deep-sea and we can only imagine what amazing facts may be hiding in the deep.

Thank you so much for reading, I wish you a fascinating weekend!
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Source: Wikipedia
Source : National Geographic
source: SeaSky.org
Source : Berkeley.edu
More reading regarding the bacteria giving anglerfish their spooky glow
Source – University of Washington
YouTube: True Facts About the Angler Fish by zefrank1
YouTube: 3d scans reveal deep-sea anglerfish huge final meal | Natural History Museum
YouTube: Analysis by Jenna Nichols