the fish's eyes, and terminates in an irregular growth of flesh (the esca) at the tip of the spine. The spine is movable in all directions, and the esca can be wiggled so as to resemble a prey animal, and thus to act as bait to lure other predators close enough for the anglerfish to devour them whole.
Some anglerfish are pelagic (live in the open water), while others are benthic (bottom-dwelling). Some live in the deep sea (e.g. Ceratiidae) and others on the continental shelf (e.g. wide mouth extends all around the anterior circumference of the head, and both jaws are armed with bands of long pointed teeth, which are inclined inwards, and can be depressed so as to offer no impediment to an object gliding towards the stomach, but prevent its escape from the mouth. When scientists first started capturing ceratioid anglerfish, they noticed that all of the specimens were females. These individuals were a few centimetres in size and almost all of them had what appeared to be parasites attached to them. It turned out that these "parasites" were highly reduced male ceratioids.
At birth, male ceratoids are already equipped with extremely well developed olfactory organs that detect scents in the water. The male ceratoid lives solely to find and mate with a female. They are significantly smaller than a female angler fish, and may have trouble finding food in the deep sea. Furthermore, the growth of the alimentary canals of some males becomes stunted, preventing them from feeding. These features necessitate his quickly finding a female anglerfish to prevent death. The sensitive olfactory organs help the male to detect the pheromones that signal the proximity of a female anglerfish. anglerfish are known to occasionally rise to the surface during El Niño, leaving large groups of dead anglerfish floating to the surface.In 2010, Greenpeace International added the American angler.
Angler fish video
deep sea amaing fishes video
