‘I’ve never seen anything like it.” Video of mating deep-sea anglerfish stuns biologists.
Although over 160 species of anglerfish have been identified, most have been identified by dead animals caught in nets and only a handful of videos of them alive have been captured. This video, captured in 2016 but released much later, is the first time a sexually united pair of anglerfish was captured.
Anglerfish mate in a particularly unique way. The tiny, dwarf male anglerfish bites and attaches himself to a female permanently, once he locates one. Eventually they become fused and begin to share her blood supply, while he then acts as a permanent sperm donor for the female. This method of reproduction likely evolved since they live in depths that have near complete darkness.
Off the
coast of Portugal in the Azores islands, the recent video shows the deep-sea anglerfish in its natural habitat. The two explorers who captured the video, Kirsten and Joachim Jakobsen, traveled 80
0 meters along the Sao Jorge Island’s sea wall and, at the very end of their 5 hour journey in their submersible vehicle, noticed the anglerfish. Later identified as Caulophryne jordani, or fanfin anglerfish, the incredible video not only depicts a sexually fused male and female caught on video for the first time, but also displays the anglerfish’s rarely seen ability to bioluminesce along its filaments in order to lure and catch prey.
To learn more about the anglerfish’s strange mating habits and unique method of prey capture, click here.
