A monstrous fish from the deep with teeth like shards of glass has washed up on a California beach.
The velvet black creature is known as a Pacific football fish, a type of anglerfish that uses a bioluminescent stalk dangling from its forehead to lure prey towards those fearsome gnashers 3,000ft below the surface.
The transparent teeth and massive mouth are capable of catching and swallowing prey as big as the fish itself.
It is not known how the individual died, but it appeared fully intact when washing up in Crystal Cove Park, near Laguna Beach in LA.
There are more than 500 species of anglerfish, and only females possess a dazzling lure. While they can grow up to 24 inches long, males only grow to around one inch in length.
Unfortunately for the males, they are known as ‘sexual parasites’. Their sole purpose is to find a mate and help her reproduce – in a frankly horrifying way. When they meet, the male bites the female, and hormones cause his mouth to dissolve and fuse with the female.
Yes, you read that right.
The male then loses its eyes and eyes as its blood and tissue mixes with the females’. It becomes forever dependent on the female to survive, but importantly continues to supply sperm for reproduction.
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Essentially, it becomes one large testicle.
Despite the obvious weirdness of the situation – codependency of the highest order – biologically speaking it is also something of a conundrum, given most individual’s immune systems are designed to attack foreign bodies. Especially if they melt into the skin and begin swapping bodily fluids.
Awkward sexual encounters aside, the anglerfish continues to fascinate scientists.
Seeing an intact individual is very rare given their deep, dark and remote habitat – so the latest individual will be studied with great interest.
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