Bizarre Sex Helped Anglerfish Diversify and Dominate the Deep Sea, Study Suggests - Smithsonian Magazine
Bufoceratias wedli , a deep-sea anglerfish Masaki Miya et al. via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY 2.0 The ocean's lightless zone begins some 1,000 feet below the surface, and in some places, it extends more than seven miles deep. Dark, vast and empty, it's a difficult place to find a mate. But anglerfish—known for their agape mouths, fishing pole-like lures that extend from their foreheads and horror-movie blank stares—seem to have found a unique solution: hold their mates close, and never let them go. More specifically, some anglerfish engage in sexual parasitism. Certain males—which have smaller bodies measuring just inches long—attach themselves with their teeth to the bellies of females, which are larger and can grow up to three feet long. After mating, the males remain affixed there permanently. Other anglerfish engage in obligate p