Anglerfish

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Anglerfish

Anglerfish are the members of the order

Order (biology)

In Biological classification used in biology, the order is a taxonomic rank between class and family . The superorder is a rank between class and order....
Lophiiformes.

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Predation

The fish are named for their characteristic method of predation

Predation

In ecology, predation describes a biological interaction where a predator feeds on its prey, the organism that is attacked. Predators may or may not kill their prey prior to feeding on them, but the act of predation always results in the death of the prey....
. Anglerfish typically have three long filaments sprouting from the middle of the head; these are the detached and modified three first spines of the anterior dorsal fin

Dorsal fin

A wikt:dorsal fin is a fin located on the backs of some fish, whales, dolphins, and porpoises, as well as the ichthyosaurs. Its main purpose is to stabilize the animal against rolling and assist in sudden turns....
. In most anglerfish species, the longest filament is the first (the illicium). This first spine protrudes above 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. The jaws are triggered in automatic reflex by contact with the tentacle.

Some deep sea anglerfish of the aphotic zone

Aphotic zone

The aphotic zone is the portion of a lake or ocean where there is little or no sunlight.It is formally defined as the depths beyond which less than 1% of sunlight penetrates....
emit light from their esca to attract prey. This bioluminescence

Bioluminescence

Bioluminescence is the production and emission of light by a living organism as the result of a chemical reaction during which chemical energy is converted to light energy....
is a result of symbiosis

Symbiosis

The term symbiosis commonly describes close and often long-term interactions between different biological species. The term was first used in 1879 by the Germany mycology Heinrich Anton de Bary, who defined it as "the living together of unlike organisms"....
with bacteria. The bacteria enter the esca from the seawater through small vents. In the confines of the esca they can multiply until their density is such that their collective glow is very bright.

In most species a 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 to prevent its escape from the mouth. The anglerfish is able to distend both its jaw and its stomach (its bones are thin and flexible) to enormous size, allowing it to swallow prey up to twice as large as its entire body.

Some benthic

Benthos

Benthos are the organisms which live on, in, or near the seabed, also known as the benthic zone. They live in or near marine sedimentary environments, from tidal pools along the Intertidal zone, out to the continental shelf, and then down to the Abyssal zone....
(bottom-dwelling) forms have arm-like pectoral fins which the fish use to walk along the ocean floor. The pectoral and ventral fins are so articulated as to perform the functions of feet, enabling the fish to move, or rather to walk, on the bottom of the sea, where it generally hides itself in the sand or amongst seaweed. All around its head and also along the body the skin bears fringed appendages resembling short fronds of seaweed, a structure which, combined with the extraordinary faculty of assimilating the colour of the body to its surroundings, camouflage

Camouflage

Camouflage is a method of cryptic or concealing coloration that allows an otherwise visible organism or object to remain invisibility through deception....
the fish in areas abundant with prey.

Reproduction

Some anglerfishes of the superfamily Ceratioidei employ an unusual mating method. Because individuals are presumably locally rare and encounters doubly so, finding a mate is problematic. When scientists first started capturing ceratioid anglerfish, they noticed that all of the specimens were females. These individuals were a few inches in size and almost all of them had what appeared to be parasites attached to them. It turned out that these "parasites" were the remains of male ceratioids.

At birth, male ceratioids are already equipped with extremely well developed olfactory organs

Olfactory system

The olfactory system is the sensory system used for olfaction, or the sense of smell. Most mammals and reptiles have two distinct parts to their olfactory system: a main olfactory system and an accessory olfactory system....
that detect scents in the water. When it is mature, the male's digestive

Digestive

Digestive may refer to:*Digestion, biological process of metabolism*Digestive biscuit, a British semi-sweet biscuit*Digestif, small beverage at the end of a meal...
system degenerates, making him incapable of feeding independently, which necessitates his quickly finding a female anglerfish to prevent his death. The sensitive olfactory organs help the male to detect the pheromone

Pheromone

A pheromone is a chemical that triggers a natural behavioral response in another member of the opposite gender of the same species. There are alarm signal pheromones, food trail pheromones, sex pheromones, and many others that affect behavior or physiology....
s that signal the proximity of a female anglerfish. When he finds a female, he bites into her skin, and releases an enzyme

Enzyme

Enzymes are biomolecules that catalysis chemical reactions. Almost all enzymes are proteins. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process are called Substrate , and the enzyme converts them into different molecules, the products....
that digests the skin of his mouth and her body, fusing the pair down to the blood-vessel level. The male then atrophies into nothing more than a pair of gonads, which releases sperm

Spermatozoon

A sperm, from the ancient Greek word sp???a and and more commonly known as a sperm cell, is the ploidy cell that is the male gamete. It Fertilization an ovum to form a zygote....
in response to hormones in the female's bloodstream indicating egg

Ovum

An ovum is a haploid female reproductive cell or gamete. Both animals and embryophytes have ova. The term ovule is used for the young ovum of an animal, as well as the plant structure that carries the female gametophyte and egg cell and develops into a seed after fertilization....
release. This extreme sexual dimorphism

Sexual dimorphism

Sexual dimorphism is the systematic difference in form between individuals of different sex in the same species. Examples include color , size, and the presence or absence of parts of the body used in courtship displays or fights, such as ornamental feathers, horns, antlers or tusks....
ensures that, when the female is ready to spawn, she has a mate immediately available.

The spawn of the anglerfish of the genus Lophius
Lophius

Members of the genus Lophius, also sometimes called monkfish, goosefish, fishing-frogs, frog-fish, and sea-devils, are well known off the coasts of Europe generally, the grotesque shape of its body and its singular habits having attracted the attention of naturalists of all ages....
consists of a thin sheet of transparent gelatinous material 2 or 3 feet wide and 25 to 30 feet long. The eggs in this sheet are in a single layer, each in its own little cavity. The spawn is free in the sea. The larvae are free-swimming and have the pelvic fins elongated into filaments. Such an egg sheet is rare in fish.

Consumption

One family Lophiidae is of commercial interest with fisheries found in the in north-western Europe, eastern North America, Africa and the Far East. In Europe and North America, the tail meat of fish of the genus Lophius
Lophius

Members of the genus Lophius, also sometimes called monkfish, goosefish, fishing-frogs, frog-fish, and sea-devils, are well known off the coasts of Europe generally, the grotesque shape of its body and its singular habits having attracted the attention of naturalists of all ages....
(known as goosefish (North America) or monkfish (British Isles)), is widely used in cooking and is often compared to lobster

Lobster

Clawed lobsters compose a family of large marine crustaceans. Lobsters are economically important as seafood, forming the basis of a global industry that nets United States dollar1.8 billion in trade annually....
tail in taste and texture.

In Asia, especially Japan, it is a delicacy. Each fish in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
cost about US$150 in 1994, with the liver

Ankimo

is a Cuisine of Japan dish made with monkfish liver.The liver is first rubbed with salt, then rinsed with sake. Then its veins are picked out and the liver is rolled into a cylinder and steamed....
valued at US$100, mentioned by Yukio Hattori

Yukio Hattori

Yukio Hattori In the English-dubbed version of Iron Chef, shown on the US Food Network and Australia's Special Broadcasting Service network, Hattori was often referred to as "Doc" by the show's announcer, Kenji Fukui....
, the commentator for the Iron Chef

Iron Chef

Iron Chef is a Japanese television program produced by Fuji Television. The original Japanese title is . The series, which premiered on October 10, 1993, was a stylized cooking competition featuring accomplished guest chefs challenging one of the show's resident "Iron Chefs" in a timed cooking battle built around a specific theme ingredi...
program in the episode that featured this ingredient.

Threats

North-west European Lophius
Lophius

Members of the genus Lophius, also sometimes called monkfish, goosefish, fishing-frogs, frog-fish, and sea-devils, are well known off the coasts of Europe generally, the grotesque shape of its body and its singular habits having attracted the attention of naturalists of all ages....
sp. are listed by the ICES

Ices

Ices may refer to:*Ices or frozen desserts, particularly within the United Kingdom*Ices or frozen volatiles in the context of astronomy and planetary science...
as "outside safe biological limits".

Classification

FishBase

FishBase is a comprehensive database of information about fish. , it included descriptions of over 30,000 species, over 260,000 common names in hundreds of languages, over 46,000 pictures, and references to more than 42,000 works in the scientific literature....
and Nelson list eighteen families, but ITIS lists only sixteen:

Suborder Antennarioidei

Antennariidae (frogfish
Frogfish

Frogfishes, family Antennariidae, are a type of anglerfish in the order Lophiiformes. They are known as anglerfishes in Australia, as 'frogfish' actually refers to a different type of fish there....
es)
Brachionichthyidae (handfish
Handfish

Handfishes are anglerfishes in the genus Brachionichthys, the only genus in the family Brachionichthyidae.They are small bottom-dwelling marine fishes found in coastal waters of southern Australia and Tasmania....
es)
Lophichthyidae (Boschma's frogfish — monotypic)
Tetrabrachiidae (four-armed frogfish — monotypic)

Suborder Lophioidei

Lophiidae (goosefish
Goosefish

Goosefishes are a family, Lophiidae, of anglerfishes. They are found in the Arctic, Atlantic, Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans where they live on sandy and muddy bottoms of the continental shelf and continental slope, at depths in excess of ....
es)

Suborder Ogcocephalioidei

Superfamily Ceratioidea

Caulophrynidae (fanfin
Fanfin

Fanfins are a family, Caulophrynidae, of anglerfishes. They are found in deep, lightless waters of the Atlantic, Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....
s)
Centrophrynidae (horned lantern fish
Horned lantern fish

The horned lantern fish or prickly seadevil, Centrophryne spinulosa, is a deep-sea anglerfish found worldwide. It is the sole species in the family Centrophrynidae, distinguished from other deep-sea anglerfishes by various characters including four pectoral radials, an anterior spine on the subopercular bone, and a short hyoid...
— monotypic)
Ceratiidae
Ceratiidae

This article is about the deep-sea fish. For other uses see Sea devil.Sea devils are a family, Ceratiidae, of deep-sea anglerfishes....
(seadevils)
Diceratiidae (double angler
Double angler

Double anglers are a family, Diceratiidae, of anglerfishes. They are found in deep, lightless waters of the Atlantic, Indian Ocean and western Pacific Oceans....
s)
Gigantactinidae (whipnose angler
Whipnose angler

The Whipnose anglers, Gigantactinidae, are a family of deep-sea anglerfishes. The family name is derived from the Greek words "gigas", meaning "big", and "aktis", meaning "ray"....
s)
Himantolophidae (footballfish
Footballfish

The footballfish are a family , Himantolophidae, of globose, deep-sea fish anglerfishes found in tropical and subtropical waters of the Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, and Pacific Ocean....
es)
Linophrynidae (leftvent
Leftvent

Leftvents are small, deep-sea lophiiform fish comprising the family Linophrynidae. Twenty-seven species in five genus are represented, distributed throughout tropical to subtropical waters of all oceans....
s)
Melanocetidae (black seadevil
Black seadevil

Black seadevils are small, deep-sea lophiiform fish comprising the family Melanocetidae. There are five known species , all within the genus Melanocetus....
s)
Neoceratiidae (toothed seadevil
Toothed seadevil

The toothed seadevil or netbeard seadevil, Neoceratias spinifer, is a rare, little-known deep-sea anglerfish found in the mesopelagic and bathypelagic zones of the western central Pacific Ocean....
— monotypic)
Oneirodidae
Oneirodidae

The dreamers are a family, Oneirodidae, of deep-sea anglerfishes in the order Lophiiformes. They are the largest and most diverse group of deep-sea anglerfish, and also the least well-known with several genera represented by only one, two, or three female specimens....
(dreamers)
Thaumatichthyidae (wolf-trap anglerfishes)

Superfamily Chaunacioidea

Chaunacidae (sea toad
Sea toad

Sea toads are a family, Chaunacidae, of deep-sea anglerfishes.They are bottom-dwelling fishes found on the continental slopes of the Atlantic, Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans, at depths of up to ....
s)

Superfamily Ogcocephalioidea

Ogcocephalidae
Ogcocephalidae

Ogcocephalidae is a family of bottom-dwelling, specially adapted fish. They are sometimes referred to as batfishes or anglerfishes. They are found in deep, lightless waters of the Atlantic, Indian Ocean and western Pacific Oceans....
(batfishes)

Anglerfish

Predation

Reproduction

Consumption

Threats

Classification

External links