Friday Deep Sea Picture: The Extensible Anglerfish

I found this interesting picture illustrating how extensible the belly of the anglerfish is. They gulp more than their share in body weight! Quite a nice adaptation when you never know another meal will pass you by.

i-f1f97b27237a9366269063094594ef66-anglerfishsds.jpg

Culled from a classroom page at Warrensburg Schools in Missouri. Way to go learning about the deep sea!

More like this

Can we replace Classroom Chaos with Learning-Centered Education? K–12 education can be better. One of the most effective changes that could be made is to reduce the amount of chaos in the classroom and replace it with learning. I spend several hours a year in various schools giving presentations…
The Portsmouth Herald discusses sexual dimorphism, specifically body size, in a cheeky sort of pop press way. This is something we never do (e.g. Man Eating Sponges). One comment has me concerned that the writer doesn't read DSN. But in many other species, it's the female who's the big one. In…
Darn it! I'm sick and tired of being a scarecrow! Charles Atlas says he can give me a real body. All right! I'll gamble a stamp and get his free book! -Countless Magazine and Comic Book Ads Last weekend, Abbie over at ERV proclaimed herself the fittest person on Scienceblogs, and one of my readers…
Look at this map, of a small part of the state of Minnesota: See the wide channel that runs from left to right with the windy river in it? You are looking at one of the most amazing stories in geological history ever. I'd like to tell you about it. When not in flood, the meandering river is…

There's something else that might not come your way that often in the bathypelagic realm -- a date. In the theme of "later nightmares", remember that some of these deep-sea anglerfishes also have parasitic males that attach themselves to the much larger females and slowly become "reduced to little more than a pair of testicles." (See the post at blogfish.com: http://blogfishx.blogspot.com/2007/02/parasitic-males.html)

Happy Fish Fridays!

By FishGuyDave (not verified) on 22 Aug 2008 #permalink

Thats hilarious Dave! I was working on a song today about parasitic deep sea angler fish males! What a coincidence lol

I was thinking of calling it "I am male hear me roar" set to the song "I am woman hear me roar" by reddy helen *lolz* about a parasitic male that wants tired of being ignored and made to feel worthless!

Yay!!! Anglerfishes, at last!!!! For those of you who (like me) find these fishes fasinating, a heads-up. Ted Pietsch, the greatest living taxonomist and researcher on this group, has a book on them coming out at the end of the year. THE definitative account of what is known to date - species, reproduction and a whole heap more. YES...........!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you can't wait that long - check out the journal 'Ichthyological Research' 2005 vol 52, pages 207 to 236 for Ted's fantastic paper titled:
"Dimorphism, paratism, and sex revisited: modes of reproduction among deep-sea ceratioid anglerfishes (Teleostei: Lophiiformes)" Enjoy :-)

GET YOUR SHIT OFF ME

By shit your ass (not verified) on 19 Feb 2009 #permalink

LETS SEX

By Fucking your s… (not verified) on 19 Feb 2009 #permalink

Is the female bigger than the male?