Deep-sea anglerfish mating has been filmed for the first time. Monkfish (angler fish)

European anglerfish, or European monkfish (lat. Lophius piscatorius) - big fish up to one and a half meters long, two-thirds of which is on the head, and weighs up to 20 kilograms.

This species received the name “monkfish” because of its very unattractive appearance.

The mouth is outrageously large and lined with a palisade of sharp teeth. The bare skin with a fringe of leathery lobes gives the fish an extremely disgusting appearance. On the head there is a fishing rod - the first ray of the dorsal fin moved forward, from which hangs an appetizing “bait” - a small leathery bulb.

All day long the devil lies motionless on the bottom and patiently waits for some fish to be tempted by his bait. Then, without hesitation, it opens its mouth and swallows the prey.

The European monkfish belongs to the anglerfish family. They live at a depth of 50-200 meters and are considered quite common inhabitants of coastal waters. Only recently has it become known that their close relatives live in the depths of the ocean. They were called deep-sea anglers.

About 120 species are now known. These amazing creatures are classified as small or very small fish. Females range in length from 5-10 to 20-40 centimeters, only the ciracy grows up to a meter, and males are dwarfs measuring 14-22 millimeters.

The main diet is fish. Capable of crawling and even “jumping” with the help of its arm-like pectoral fins. Most often, the monkfish lies motionless on the bottom. Merging with the bottom, the monkfish lures prey to itself with an eska bait. When the prey swims up to the hunter, the angler opens its mouth in a split second and sucks in water along with the victim.

Only females have a fishing rod. Often this gear is clearly divided into a rod, a fishing line and a luminous bait suspended at its end. For each type of angler, the bait has a shape and size unique to these fish and emits light rays of a strictly defined color. The bait is a bag filled with mucus in which glowing bacteria live. In order to emit light, bacteria need oxygen. When the anglerfish has had lunch and is busy digesting food, it no longer needs light. It can attract attention to the anglerfish large predator. Then the devil is in over his head blood vessels fishing line and temporarily extinguishes his flashlight.

The rod, located above the fish's head, is directed upward and forward, and the bait dangles near the mouth. This is where gullible game is lured. Gigantaxis have a rod with a fishing line that is 4 times longer than the fish itself. This allows you to cast the bait far and, teasing the prey, lure it to its mouth, which is always ready to open. Each type of bait attracts a very specific game. This is confirmed by the fact that in the stomachs of some anglers there are constantly found fish that are rarely caught in deep-sea trawls and are considered very rare.

U deep sea anglerfish Everything is unusual, especially reproduction. Males and females are so different from each other that they were previously considered different species of fish. When the male becomes an adult, he goes in search of a female. At the grooms big eyes and an impressive olfactory organ that help locate the female. For a tiny fish, finding a bride is a difficult task. Nobody knows how much time they spend on this. It is not surprising that, having found a bride, the male immediately sinks his teeth into her.

Soon the male’s lips and tongue grow onto his wife’s body, and she takes her husband as her full dependent. Through the vessels grown into his body, the female supplies him with everything he needs. The male no longer needs the jaws, intestines and eyes, and they atrophy. In the male’s body, only the heart and gills continue to work, helping to supply oxygen to his body, and even the testes. During breeding, the female spawns eggs, and the male regularly waters them with milk.

Female anglerfish Haplophryne mollis with males attached to it

Robbie N. Cada/Wikimedia Commons

Deep-sea anglers or ceratiformes are fish from the suborder Ceratioidei. These predatory fish live at depths of up to 4,500 meters and feed on other fish and crustaceans. They got their name for their unusual way of hunting: many anglerfish have a “fishing rod” above their heads, into which the first, second or third ray of the dorsal fin has turned and which can move in all directions. She has a bait at the end that attracts others predatory fish. When the prey swims too close to the anglerfish's mouth, it swallows it. In some species, the bait contains bioluminescent bacteria, so it emits light.

The rare video was filmed by spouses Christine and Joachim Jakobsen at a depth of 800 meters. They observed deep-sea animals up close Azores from the Lula1000 submarine, which can dive to a depth of one kilometer and has been used for scientific observations since 2013. It should be noted that the researchers did not specify what species the pair of anglerfish they encountered belonged to.

Recently, biologists have learned that another deep-sea fish, white stingrays, have learned to use hydrothermal vents at the bottom as incubators when breeding. Researchers discovered about 150 stingray egg capsules near the “black smokers.”

Ekaterina Rusakova

I’ll tell you today about one creepy but charming inhabitant of the depths of the sea - deep sea anglerfish . When you mention this creature, you immediately remember a scene from the cartoon about Nemo the fish.

This picture is not far from the truth :)

Deep sea anglerfish or ceratiformes (lat. Ceratioidei) - a suborder of deep-sea fish from the order of anglerfish, whose representatives live on great depths World ocean.

Deep-sea anglerfish constantly live at a depth of about 1500 - 3000 m. They are characterized by a spherical, laterally flattened shape and the presence of a “fishing rod” in females. Their bare skin is black or dark brown; in some species, the skin may be covered with transformed scales - spines and plaques.

Traditionally, deep-sea fish are thought to have bloated bodies with bulging eyes and ugly shapes, but this is not true. Deep-sea fish take on the appearance of bloated bodies when they are lifted to the surface in fishing nets due to excess internal pressure, which at depths of 1500-3000 meters is 150-300 atmospheres.

Anglerfish are characterized by pronounced sexual dimorphism. Females are much larger than males and are predators. They have big mouth, powerful teeth and a highly stretchable stomach. The first ray of the dorsal fin of females is transformed into a “fishing rod” (illicium) with a luminous “bait” (esca) at the end. But sexual dimorphism is most pronounced in size. The length of females varies from 5 cm to 1 m, the length of males - from 16 mm to 4 cm.

Illicium in females various types varies in shape and size and is equipped with various skin appendages. In some species, the illicium is capable of extending and retracting into a special canal on the back. Luring in prey, the anglerfish gradually moves the luminous bait towards its mouth until it swallows its prey.

The luminous organ is a gland filled with mucus containing bioluminescent bacteria. Thanks to the expansion of the walls of the arteries that supply the gland with blood, the fish can arbitrarily cause the glow of bacteria, which require an influx of oxygen for this, or stop it, narrowing the vessels. Typically, the glow occurs in the form of a series of successive flashes, individual for each species. The bottom-dwelling Galateatauma, which lives at a depth of about 3600 m, has a luminous bait in its mouth. Unlike other deep-sea anglerfish, it apparently hunts while lying on the bottom.

Adult female anglerfish feed on deep-sea fish, crustaceans and, less commonly, cephalopods; males - copepods and bristlejaws. The stomach of females is capable of very strong stretching, thanks to which they can swallow prey that is often larger than them. The gluttony of anglers sometimes leads to their own death. They found dead anglers with swallowed fish that were more than twice their size. Having captured such large prey, the anglerfish cannot release it due to the peculiar structure of its teeth and chokes.

Everyone Good night and good dreams! :)

Original taken from

Original taken from viatcheslav V

What kind of creatures have not appeared on Earth as a result of natural selection. IN harsh conditions, on great depth, where the water is icy, the pressure reaches colossal values, and the amount of food is minimal, deep-sea angler fish (lat. Ceratioidei) live.

They live at a depth of one and a half to three kilometers. The peculiarity of these fish is the modified ray of the dorsal fin, which acts as a bait and is shaped like a fisherman’s fishing rod (in fact, for this reason they are nicknamed anglers).

At the end of a fishing rod (illicia), hanging over a huge mouth with sharp needle-shaped teeth, there is a small skin outgrowth (esca), filled with millions of luminous bacteria. It is to its light, like moths to a flame, that other, small and not so small, inhabitants of the ocean floor float. To enhance the effect produced by the fish, the anglerfish is able to control the brightness and frequency of the flashes. To do this, it is enough for him to narrow or expand the blood vessels, regulating the amount of oxygen entering the escus, which “ignites” or, conversely, “extinguishes” the luminous bacteria.

U different types For anglers, the principle of operation and design of fishing rods can vary - from the simplest, hanging over the head, to more complex ones, capable of extending out of the channel on the back and retracting back, bringing the future victim directly into the mouth.

Amazing, isn't it? However, this is not the most unusual thing about these fish. The method of reproduction of some species of anglerfish is amazing.

Males whose size is tens of times smaller sizes females voluntarily go to the extent of transforming from full-fledged individuals into primitive appendages that produce sperm.

The female is capable of carrying up to six males, always and everywhere providing herself with a constant supply of sperm, freeing her from the need to regularly search for partners.

Today we are talking about angler fish. And all because news appeared that it was first filmed in natural environment habitat at a depth of 600 meters using special underwater equipment!

Angler fish are a completely unusual order of fish.
They live deep, deep in the water and look rather unattractive. They have a very large flattened head, and the upper jaw can extend! But the most interesting thing is how the angler fish hunts. There is a bait on his back - once one feather from his dorsal fin separated from the others and turned into a “fishing rod”, at the end of which a small “flashlight” formed.

In fact, it is a gland that looks like a transparent sac, inside of which there are bacteria. They may or may not glow, depending on the anglerfish itself, which can control the bacteria by dilating or constricting blood vessels. If the vessels expand, more oxygen enters the “flashlight”, it shines brightly, and if they narrow, its light disappears. And this “flashlight” in complete darkness lures prey to the anglerfish. As soon as a fish or any other animal approaches the “flashlight,” the angler opens its mouth and sucks in the fish with lightning speed.

Anglerfish have the fastest cast of any animal! Here there is slow motion and you can see how quickly he eats what he managed to lure - once and done.

And its stomach can stretch so that a fish the size of an anglerfish can fit inside it.
All of these photos show a female anglerfish, only she has a "fishing rod". But this photo is interesting because both the female and the male are immediately visible in it. There he is - that little fish on the right.

And here is the same video in which he was first filmed in his own habitat. The angler fish here is small, or rather small - 9 cm.

I wonder if the children will notice a curious detail about this fish?
Look, his tooth fell out! In the video they joke that it is unclear whether a new one will grow or not, but one thing is clear: there are no tooth fairies in the ocean!