A few weeks back, having been enticed to The Deep Sea exhibition, we beat a hasty retreat from the crowds at the Natural History Museum. And conversation turned to angler fish.Sara explained to me that the iconic image of an angler fish (scary ginormous-mouthed creature with translucent pointy teeth and bioluminescent rod bait-ey thing) is always drawn from the female fisshies. The boys, it turns out, are teeny in comparison, and look quite different.
They resemble tumours, as it turns out. Here's the science bit from National Geographic:
"In lieu of continually seeking the vast abyss for a female, [the male] has evolved into a permanent parasitic mate. When a young, free-swimming male angler encounters a female, he latches onto her with his sharp teeth. Over time, the male physically fuses with the female, connecting to her skin and bloodstream and losing his eyes and all his internal organs except the testes. A female will carry six or more males on her body."
The weird growths on the Lady Angler were once thought to be proto-fins; turns out they're a selection of her mates, all permanently squodged in and living off her.
Off the scale on the Wacky-Meter...
Tum de dum, back to work now :-)
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