I found this interesting picture illustrating how extensible the belly of the anglerfish is. They gulp more than their share in body weight! Quite a nice adaptation when you never know another meal will pass you by.
Culled from a classroom page at Warrensburg Schools in Missouri. Way to go learning about the deep sea!
- Log in to post comments
All my high school science teacher talked about was hamsters, birds and farm animals. If only he had shown us the "Fish from Hell, deep-sea fishing adventure" video: http://www.myfavouriteplaces.org/wl/pivot/entry.php?id=91 :D
*storing this post away for later nightmares.
There's something else that might not come your way that often in the bathypelagic realm -- a date. In the theme of "later nightmares", remember that some of these deep-sea anglerfishes also have parasitic males that attach themselves to the much larger females and slowly become "reduced to little more than a pair of testicles." (See the post at blogfish.com: http://blogfishx.blogspot.com/2007/02/parasitic-males.html)
Happy Fish Fridays!
Thats hilarious Dave! I was working on a song today about parasitic deep sea angler fish males! What a coincidence lol
I was thinking of calling it "I am male hear me roar" set to the song "I am woman hear me roar" by reddy helen *lolz* about a parasitic male that wants tired of being ignored and made to feel worthless!
Yay!!! Anglerfishes, at last!!!! For those of you who (like me) find these fishes fasinating, a heads-up. Ted Pietsch, the greatest living taxonomist and researcher on this group, has a book on them coming out at the end of the year. THE definitative account of what is known to date - species, reproduction and a whole heap more. YES...........!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you can't wait that long - check out the journal 'Ichthyological Research' 2005 vol 52, pages 207 to 236 for Ted's fantastic paper titled:
"Dimorphism, paratism, and sex revisited: modes of reproduction among deep-sea ceratioid anglerfishes (Teleostei: Lophiiformes)" Enjoy :-)
GET YOUR SHIT OFF ME
LETS SEX
Is the female bigger than the male?