Anglerfish are probably among the most famous animals that thrive in the darkness of the deep ocean, but even them remain poorly studied. Now, a new video captured 800 meters below the sea surrounding the Azores islands has biologists stunned. "I’ve never seen anything like it," claims Prof Ted Pietsch, a deep-sea biologist working at the University of Washington.
In the video, a female the size of a human fist, belonging to the Caulophryne jordani species, is seen with a male attached, something never observed in the wild before. Several species of anglerfish feature this reproductive strategy, where the male bites into his mate and attaches himself for life as it fuses into the female, obtaining sustenance directly through her blood and functioning essentially as a permanent source of sperm. Even more, the female is also seen to have bioluminescent "whiskers" and fin rays, something never seen before.
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