Once an anglerfish has lured in its prey, the fish has every incentive to keep it.
In this 3D image, created from a CT scan of an anglerfish, researchers like Karly Cohen at the University of Washington can inspect bones and teeth that grow in unusual ways (or unusual places) in deep-sea anglerfish. The lure, also called an "esca," has a pore on the end that is designed to host these bacteria, many of which can’t live anywhere else, and many of which are unique to that species of anglerfish. Glow upĪnglerfish lures glow in the deep ocean, at least half a mile (0.8 kilometers) below the sunlit surface, thanks to luminescent bacteria that take root in the fish’s lure. If you touch the stomachs, it’s quite squishy, for lack of a better term."īut don’t worry too much about these deep-sea horrors: They’re far too small to hurt a human, making their oversized teeth and misshapen bodies… kinda cute? While some anglerfish can grow up to three or four feet (0.9 to 1.2 m) long (like Ceratias holboelli), the average size of an adult is 6 inches (16 centimeters) long - a little smaller than a volleyball. "Sometimes they’re caught and they have whole fish in their stomachs. "They’ll end up with a bubble belly," she told Live Science. Many anglerfish can stretch their stomachs to double their original size.
Anglerfish mouths are often the biggest part of their bodies, and if a meal “can fit in the mouth, it can fit in the body,” Gerringer said. So when an anglerfish does come across a meal, they make it last. Pietsch wrote in Oceanic Anglerfishes that most anglerfish stomachs that have been examined are empty.
In the deep ocean, meals are few and far between. This "black seadevil" anglerfish was photographed at 1,968 feet (600 meters) below the surface in Monterey Bay, California.
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