It will need to investigate, of course, hoping that it has managed to find something edible in the vast biological desert of the deep sea.Īs soon as a fish comes close to investigate the lure…BAM! Game over! The angler fish gulps and grabs and the curious fish becomes dinner. The lure at the end of the fishing pole is bioluminescent and, in some species, the fish can even wriggle it like a worm! Imagine another fish swimming by when it sees this lure bobbing about in the pitch black of the vast ocean. The anglerfish’s “fishing pole and lure” is a very clever adaptation given the problem of potential prey being few and far between. Designed by Jollytoad on the BioGeoPlanet Team. This T-shirt is the perfect gift for the picky pescatarian. Here’s your chance to support ugly fish that like to celebrate Christmas… er, Fishmas. Ergebnisse der deutschen Tiefsee-Expedition ‘Valdivia’, 1898-99, 1906. From August Brauer (1863–1917): Die Tiefsee-Fische. This anglerfish is another good example of a big mouth and needle sharp teeth.ĭoesn’t this Humpback anglerfish look like the quintessential ugly sea creature?! Humpback Anglerfish. Photo by Francesco Costa on Wikimedia CC 3.0 It can unhinge its jaws, allowing it to open its mouth up to 90° to catch prey up to 63% its own body size.įortunately, these fish are not large and people rarely meet them in real life! They grow up to 11-12 inches or 30 cm and live in the deep ocean. When the jaw is closed, the teeth fit together to form a cage that can trap prey. Sloane’s Viperfish (Chauliodus sloani) is a great example of a fish with a big mouth filled with needle-sharp teeth that can grab and hold even the wriggliest of prey animals. Solution? BIG mouths with needle-sharp teeth to grab and hold anything that moves!! When they do come across something to eat, they want to make darn certain that any creature worth eating will not escape! These immense spaces can make it especially difficult for deep-sea fish to find food. 99% of the biosphere is found in the waters of the world. This 1% includes the surfaces of all of the continents and the land creatures we are most familiar with.
In fact, less than 1% of the biosphere on our planet is terrestrial. That is an almost unimaginable volume of water when considered on a human scale. Satellite measurements show that the oceans hold 0.3 billion cubic miles (1.332 billion cubic kilometers) of water with an average ocean depth of 2.3 miles (3,682.2 meters).
In contrast, the vast oceans are three dimensional – several miles deep and hundreds or thousands of miles wide from shore to shore. We humans are “flat earth” creatures used to operating primarily in one plane on the surface of the planet. One of the biggest challenges for deep sea creatures is the immensity of the oceans in all directions. Anglerfish female in the dark abyss How Do Fish Find Food in the Immense Ocean Spaces?
There’s a certain beauty to adaptations that allow these creatures to survive and thrive in the extreme conditions of the deep sea. We may consider these adaptations weird and ugly, but they can be key to survival in the oceans depths of the world.
They can have fishing lures that glow in the dark, immense teeth to hold onto prey, and giant stomachs. Some of my most popular presentations are about weird and ugly creatures! I love the reactions I get when I show photos of some of the ugliest creatures found on our planet – especially those that live in the deep sea!ĭeep sea creatures have some unique adaptations for living in the icy cold, pitch black depths of the oceans far below the photic zone where light penetrates.
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