New scary-looking fish species comes from the ocean's dark depths
By
Ben Brumfield, CNN
Updated 10:00 AM ET, Fri August 7, 2015
Story highlights
- Scientists found the new anglerfish species in dark depths below 3,000 feet
- The fish live under a water pressure of 2,200 pounds per square inch
(CNN)Now and again, marine scientists plumbing the dark depths of the sea pull out a new fish species that is just out-and-out ugly.
The
latest discovery looks like a hunchbacked, rotting old shoe with
spikes, a scraggly mustache and a big mouth with bad teeth. And it has a
long, angular fishing pole-looking thing growing out of its head.
The feature is typical for all species of ceratioid anglerfish, which they indeed use to lure other fish to their spiky jaws.
"This
fish dangles the appendage until an unsuspecting fish swims up thinking
they found a meal, only to quickly learn that they are, in fact, a meal
themselves," the marine
researchers from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, said in a statement.
The spooky tackle is believed to have evolved from a dorsal fin.
Where the sun doesn't shine
Looks don't matter when you live where the sun never shines, but other things do.
The
researchers caught three of the new fish species in the northern Gulf
of Mexico at depths of 3,280 to 4,921 feet (1,000 to 1,500 meters) in
what's called the bathyal zone -- nicknamed the midnight zone, because
waters there are pitch black.
No plants
grow there, and the survival of creatures that call it home depends on
waste called marine snow that sinks down to them. The fight for food is
fierce and calls for innovative strategies -- like that natural fishing
pole.
Usually, the only light in the
midnight zone is produced by some fish that are bioluminescent, which is
to say, they glow in the dark.
At
that depth, the water pressure is a crushing 2,200 pounds per square
inch. For comparison, humans on Earth's surface live in an atmospheric
pressure of about 15 psi.
Such finds
remind Tracey Sutton, a deep-sea life expert at the university, of how
much of the world's vast oceans are yet undiscovered.
"Every
time we go out on a deep-sea research excursion there's a good chance
we'll see something we've never seen before -- the life at these depths
is really amazing," he said.
Explorers find unknown creature in ocean
Odd, new look
Sutton and researcher Theodore Pietsch described the new anglerfish species in a study
published in the journal Copeia, dedicated to research on fish, amphibians and reptiles.
It looks quite different from previously discovered anglerfish, which are usually stout and roundish.
The
team caught three females of the new species, all of them less than 4
inches (10 centimeters) long. Finding male anglerfish swimming about is
rare, as they are usually much smaller than females and bite their way
into the female's side, where they remain as parasites.
At first, they appear to be lumps in the female's bodies.
The parasitic relationship is how many anglerfish reproduce.
The male's body degenerates to become an attached reproductive organ, ready to fertilize when the time is right.
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