Sometimes you may have seen the images of these amazing creatures while scrolling in social media or World Wide Web. These predator fishes are famous because of their unusual appearance, sharp fangs, and their methods of hunting. Do you know that the history of anglerfish goes back millions of years ago? Yes of course. According to genetic analysis, anglerfishes were first evolved 100-130 million years ago. Without any doubt, anglerfishes have become one of the ugliest fish families in the sea! Let’s go through some more interesting information about these anglerfishes you may like to know!
#The appearance of this Anglerfish
Anglerfishes have very strange sizes and shapes. Most of the species have rounded bodies. The ones who live near the seafloor have flattened shape bodies. It means they are shorter but wider insides. The ones who freely swim have narrow bodies from sides but are taller. Most of them have large mouths full of inward angled prominent fangs to capture prey. The lure on the head can be hooked, straight, or curved and some species have muscular skin flaps on their heads to hide that lure. Their body color most of the time ranges from dark brown to gray but there are some with red and green-yellow bodies.
#Some Unique features that Anglerfishes have
Did you ever wonder how these creatures find prays in the dark deep sea without any light? They produce light themselves from their lures in the dark sea to attract prays towards them. Those lures are filled with light-emitting bacteria. Anglerfishes grab those bacteria from seawater.
These creatures have a huge sexual dimorphism. That means there is a big difference between males and females. Their males sometimes look like completely different species. While their females are long about 1-4 feet, males size only several inches long. And also in many anglerfish species, females have lures but males don’t have.
Do you like to know the most abnormal habit of these anglerfishes? Unlike in other species their males are much smaller than females. So when a male finds a big lady he bits her skin and attaches to her. Then he uses to depend on her through nutrients in her blood. So he just becomes only a sperm producer.
#Habitats of the Anglerfish
As there are more than 200 species they used to live in different levels of the sea. Some species can find closer to the shore such as frogfish. Some species such as goosefish live closer to the sandy bottom of the sea. But most of the species live in the deep dark sea such as humpback anglerfish. Different anglerfish species can be found in different ranges. Some species like black-bellied anglerfish can be only found in small ranges such as the Mediterranean Sea. But some species like humpback anglerfish can be found in worldwide oceans.
#Diet of these Anglerfish
As they have huge mouths, they can catch prey as large as themselves. Usually, they eat small fishes, snails, shrimp, and squids. But their diet depends on each species depending on their habits and range.
