The Angler Fish

[Dangerdoll]

So, I was watching "The Most Extreme" and this fish was listed as the number 1 weird animal. Something I found fascinating about it though, and something they said so little is known about and they found this out recently. The fish with the "lure" type thing is always the female. The male is completely different. Looks nothing like the female and is multiple times smaller than her. For mating, he latches onto her side and morphs into her for the rest of his life..... bling! fertilized. They say of the angler fish that they have found, they thought these lumps sticking off the anlers were tumors or growths of some sort..... I was completely amazed.

 

[Gotcha38]

That's incredible. That's even worse than Praying Mantis mating! At least the mantis gets to die. That guy is stuck with her for the rest of her life!

When I originally opened this I read "archer fish". I saw a fish on tv that swims to the waters surface, and shoots bugs off of brantches with streams of water. Also pretty awesome.

 

[Tesla_HV]

Mating forever? The idea does have a certain appeal to it. :joke: :dive2:

 

[J double R]

the epitome of "til death do us part".... lol.

 

[trixx]

Scientists believe it's because encountering the mate is so rare (virtually once in a lifetime), they glom-on, as such, to ensure continued reproduction/survival.

...bleek, definately.

 

[DarkSoul]

my biggest surprise about these things was watching Finding Nemo, and seeing the angler there and thinking "wow, they really exaggerated this fish... "

and then doing some googling, and seeing that the angler looked about the same...... ugly frickin things.... but cool.