8/14/2023 0 Comments Male football fishThey live so deep that we don't really have a good idea of how big they actually get. He reports by email that, "There are about 166 species so far, but new ones are still coming up. Ted Pietsch, a professor at the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington and author of Oceanic Anglerfishes: Extraordinary Diversity in the Deep Sea, has been studying the elusive anglerfish almost his entire career. Some species of anglerfish live in shallow, tropical waters, but the ones that peak the interest of scientists are the ones that live in the deep, murky depths of the ocean - some as deep as 16,400 feet (5,000 meters). You gotta admit, that's some seriously self-sufficient fishing. Once their prey comes close, the female strikes and snags them, using her large, pointy teeth to chomp them up, even if they are twice her size. They wiggle and "angle" a rod-like extension of their dorsal spine that protrudes from their head and emits light. The carnivorous female anglerfish wait patiently in the depths of the sparsely populated deep sea to literally lure in their next meal. Yep, just like a fisherman sitting with a pole in hand, anglerfish do indeed fish. Rather their end game is to attract their prey using a form of fishing known as angling, where an angle (hook) is used to lure in and catch an unsuspecting fish. Ted PietschĪnglerfish have got an angle all right, but it's definitely not to win anyone over with their spooky good looks. The Southern Footballfish, ( Himantolophus stewarti), a globose spiny anglerfish, with an elaborately decorated lure and protruding chin, restricted to the deep southern waters of all three major oceans of the world, was described as new to science as recently as 2011.
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